Arsenal: Thomas Lemar has excuses but Riyad Mahrez doesn’t

Arsenal have been turned away in their Thomas Lemar pursuit, but if worse comes to worse, there are no excuses to not land Riyad Mahrez.

Thomas Lemar is quickly becoming the target I most want to see come to Arsenal. On a star-studded Monaco team, with players like Bernardo Silva selling for £43m, it was Lemar who had arguably the best production on the team and yet he still isn’t being touted as the star that he is.

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That said, Monaco know exactly what kind of star he is, and they were not impressed with Arsenal’s reported £31m bid to land the French attackers services. Hopefully it doesn’t end there, and according to more pesky rumors – it won’t.

But there are built-in excuses for why Wenger might not be able to land Lemar. Monaco may be serious about him not being for sale. They may be serious that they can’t part with him after parting with Silva too. I mean, this is a talented dude and if Wenger doesn’t pay a ridiculous fee, they might just not see the benefit of selling him.

These are valid reasons. I will still be massively disappointed if we can’t land Lemar, but in the end, if Wenger has to begrudgingly admit that Monaco rejected every single bid, then what can be done?

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Riyad Mahrez is a different story. For every excuse that Wenger can stomp up in his defense if he can’t land Lemar, there aren’t any that can be applied to Mahrez.

What I’m saying is, if we can’t land Lemar, then there should be nothing in the way of us landing Mahrez.

The painful truth about the Algerian is that, in two years of Premier League relevance, he has only had half of a season of success. Aside from that first half season, he has been mediocre at best and clearly in need of a change of scenery.

Mahrez is not going to cost a stupid amount. He has nothing to gain from staying at Leicester City and that is the undeniable truth. His price tag has dropped significantly and whatever magic the Foxes had at their disposal in that most improbable of seasons has clearly gone away.

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While he may feel like nothing more than a fail safe, landing Mahrez could turn into a move of pure gold. Surround him with the right cast of characters and he could damn well become who he was in 2015.