Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez has fired a warning to the club’s rivals ahead of the new season. The Algerian forward played a key role in the Citizen’s Premier League triumph last term, contributing to their title charge with 11 goals and five assists in 28 games.
Ahead of the new Premier League campaign, Manchester City are the bookies’ favourite once again and it is a question of if any of their rivals can come close this time around. They might have lost Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus but the marquee signing of Erling Haaland as well as Julian Alvarez, means City have more than replaced their departures.
City have now won the Premier League four times in the past five seasons and Liverpool are the only other side to win it in that time. Just like last season, it has mostly been a two-man race between both sides and much of the same is expected for the coming campaign. Liverpool might have lost Sadio Mane but also strengthened themselves, with the arrival of Darwin Nunez from Benfica.
Mahrez has now issued a stern warning to City’s rivals, insisting that they are all out to retain their domestic crown once again.
Mahrez states City’s intention to retain Premier League crown
City will not rest on their laurels just yet and are ready to go all out for their fifth crown in six seasons. It won’t be an easy task regardless but Mahrez is confident his side can get the job done, as usual.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mahrez – who recently penned a new contract – said: “We really, really want to win again. When the season starts, we want to go again. That’s the big motivation. We never ever think, ‘Oh, it’s going to be easy this year,’ or we can go a bit easy. No, we go 100 per cent from the beginning, because we want to win and we are built with this mentality.”
“On the last day, against Aston Villa, I was just thinking, f****** hell, what are we doing here? We’re playing at home and we’re losing 2-0 against Villa. Sometimes you don’t feel good in a game, I didn’t that day, and some other people came in and helped us to win – that’s what our team is about.”
City continued their pre-season preparations in decent form, with their most recent 1-0 win coming against Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich. New signing Erling Haaland was the scorer of that all-important goal that was enough to see them win.
Manchester City will now look forward to the Community Shield clash, where they will face familiar foes Liverpool on the 24th of July. Following that game, the Citizens will now begin the defence of their Premier League crown when they travel to take on West Ham in their opening game of the new season on the 7th of August.
