Riyad Mahrez has ended speculation about his future by signing a new four-year deal with Leicester City.
The PFA player of the year has joined Jamie Vardy in signing a new contract this summer with the Premier League champions.
Mahrez’s contract will make him the club’s second-highest paid player, behind Vardy, whose new deal earns him around £100,000 a week.
Mahrez was a key figure in Leciester’s success last season, scoring 17 Premier League goals and assisting another 11.
This week the Algerian forward admitted that only “two or three clubs in the world” could tempt him away from Leicester and suggested that he had no desire to leave the Premier League.
Having lost N’Golo Kante to Chelsea last month, Leicester were determined retain the core of the team who won the Premier League. As well as Mahrez and Vardy, Wes Morgan, Kasper Schmeichel and Andy King have signed deals this summer. England midfielder Danny Drinkwater is the one remaining key player who has yet to sign a new deal.
Mahrez was signed from Le Havre, in the French second division, in January 2014 during Nigel Pearson’s reign as manager. He was a revelation last season and had been linked with moves to a number of clubs over the summer, most noptably Arsenal and Barcelona – though neither is reported to have made a bid for the player.
