Pep can unearth his next Mahrez as MCFC plot move for "world-class" £127.5m "diamond" - opinion

Manchester City ended their latest Premier League season with more goals scored than any other side in the division.

With 38 games played, the Citizens found the net 99 times, five more times than Liverpool managed to in second place.

One figure in Pep Guardiola’s squad that contributed a fair amount to City’s latest title-winning campaign in an attacking sense is Riyad Mahrez.

With 28 league appearances to his name, the winger scored 11 goals and provided five assists, leaving only Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling with more goal contributions.

The end of the campaign saw the Algerian pick up his third Premier League title as a City player since joining from Leicester City back in 2018 for a fee of £60m.

Now that the 31-year-old is set to enter the final year of his contract in the coming weeks, one figure the club have been linked with recently that could be his ideal long-term replacement is Rafael Leao.

The AC Milan winger, who has the City winger included on a list of similar players to him according to FBref, also showed during his latest domestic season how integral he was to his side’s title-winning campaign.

In 34 Serie A appearances, the Portuguese winger, who has been labelled as a “diamond” by Paolo Maldini, found the net 11 times and delivered ten assists.

To further highlight his impressive attacking talent, the 23-year-old ended the campaign with more shots at goal (97), shot-creating actions (105) and successful dribbles (95) than any other Milan player, as well as racking up the joint-highest number of crosses (69) in the squad.

Described as “world-class” by Matteo Bonetti, it’s easy to see why Leao reportedly has a rather hefty release clause in his contract worth €150m (£127.5m).

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