Arsenal: Riyad Mahrez nothing more than food for the starving

Arsenal has been tied to Riyad Mahrez since he won the Premier League title, but now, things are different. It’s just another fount of desperation.

Arsenal’s link to Riyad Mahrez has always given me pause. I admire the man as a player, he is rather solid, you have to say. He did, after all, help pull off the greatest surprise Premier League title of all time and he did it while earning the PFA Player of the Year.

However, as I have said countless times in the past, that award was based off about five months of good form, from August through December of 2015. After that, he failed to amount to much, but it was such a fantastic short stretch that he took home the award.

Kind of like Alexis Sanchez’s initial burst in the Premier League, which turned into a fit of struggles. However, Alexis sorted himself out. Mahrez still hasn’t.

This year, for instance, he has played 617 minutes and notched only his first goal this past week while adding two assists earlier in the season.

That’s not exactly the greatest return in the world. And sure, you could argue that he is desperate for a change of scenery and I couldn’t argue with you, because switching to another team may damn well unlock the old Mahrez.

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But for now, the concept of the Algerian coming to Arsenal is food that would only appeal to the starving. He isn’t what the club needs to rise back up and be ruthless again. He isn’t an upgrade at any position or any better than who the Gunners currently have. He’s another name in the hat.

And, as he has shown us lately, when the team struggles, Mahrez finds himself going right along with that trend. Just like nearly everyone on the team he would be joining.

Fortunately for Mahrez, however, a lot of Gooners are starving, not to mention the club, and the idea of bringing him to Arsenal may not be the craziest thing in the world.

At the very least, it is something different. Something magnificently different. And for the Gunners, the last two things that have been different – Sead Kolasinac and Alexandre Lacazette – are the two players topping the increasingly short list of guys who have not let us down this year.

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So from that standpoint, why not? Sign him up, give him a shot. It’s not like having another name in the mix won’t help. And we can look forward to the selection frustration every matchday.

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