Pep Guardiola sends Riyad Mahrez strong message about his Man City form

Pep Guardiola has praised Riyad Mahrez’s contribution to Manchester City’s promising season - but hinted that the winger is still not as good as he was last season. The Algeria star has racked up a new personal best in terms of his goal tally, taking his total to 21 with two second half goals in the 4-1 rout of Manchester United last week.

That effort has out-stripped the 18 he bagged for Leicester when he was PFA Player of the Year and led them to the Premier League title in 2016, and is already a 50 per cent improvement on the 14 he scored last season, which was his best return for the Blues until now. But Mahrez only has six assists this season, and at the moment that is his lowest total since he racked up five for Leicester in their difficult post-title season of 2016-17.

That surprising stat means he is still behind Gabriel Jesus (7) in terms of assists, after the Brazil star began the season in fine style and initially kept Mahrez out of the team. The other major plus with Mahrez in the last 18 months has been the way he has solved City’s five-year-old problem of taking penalties, by scoring the last nine he has taken for the Blues.

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His ability to score goals, both from open play and the spot, has placed him ahead of Jesus this season - but Guardiola says he has room for improvement and believes he has still not hit the heights he reached in the latter stages of last season: “He has scored a lot of goals, penalties, assists and everything,” said Guardiola, ahead of the Monday night clash with Crystal Palace which sees City eager to re-open the six-point gap which Liverpool reduced to three with their win at Brighton this weekend.

“A part of that is the quality he