This will be my "magnus opus" on this subject, so if you don't want to do a lot of reading feel free to skip. The thought that keeps going through my head is whether Mahrez or for that matter any left footer is the right signing if we are making just 1 attacking signing.
For me, we have a weakness on the right hand side. I know Mahrez ussually plays on the right hand side but he doesn't have the attributes which are going to fix the problem. The root of the problem, ultimately is that neither of our 2 right backs are particularly good at crossing and that Sterling doesn't like staying wide either and also is a pretty mediocre crosser of the ball.
The weakness has been exposed a couple of times this season but none more obviously than our games against Liverpool where we were constantly relying on Sane to generate something from wide left. If you look at our squad, Walker and Danilo are arguably our 2 poorest players on the ball. Walker has a lot of great attributes and I rate him as a player, but with the ball at his feet, I don't think it's a stretch to say he and danilo are the 2 poorest passers and neither of them are especially good crossers either. Now if we had a right footed forward who was a great crosser of the ball we could compensate for this but our 2 forwards that play on the right are Bernardo and Sterling. Bernardo likes to come inside on his left foot and Sterling also likes to drift infield, and even if he stayed wide his delivery isn't great anyway. What we really need is a right footed Sane. Signing Mahrez, who prefers playing on the right and cutting inside as well is only going to further exaserbate the problem. When our right sided forward cuts inside , as they all do, neither Walker nor Danilo really have the quality on the ball to make use of the space on the overlap. I really believe that this is why Pep has been taking a look at Cancelo. He is fast and he has excellent delivery (I watch Inter quite a lot).
Sterling is the most curious case. He isn't comfortable playing on the left and cutting inside, he prefers playing on the right, but he still prefers to be infield, not hugging the byline. He almost operates as a second striker. Sterling is a brilliant interpreter of space and his positional awareness is something special. He gets a lot of flak from the rag media over his finishing which isn't the greatest but many times his runs and positivity and reading of the play get him into goal scoring positions that no other player would be getting themselves into anyway. But that's a bit of an aside, because it doesn't fix the problem we have on the right. Needless to say though, with his positional awareness and the way he interprets space in attack, I think Sterling could be one of the best in the world if he were somehow able to improve his final ball significantly.
Basically though, we need a player who can provide the kind of delivery from the right that sane and mendy can provide from the left. None of Sterling, Danilo, Walker and Mahrez are that player. We either need to sign right footed full back who is great with his feet and final ball (Cancelo?) Or a right footed forward who will stay wide and allow Walker/Danilo to underlap thus minimizing their weaknesses (perhaps Zaha?).
This is basically the reason I'd take Zaha over Mahrez. I think Mahrez is a better player overall but I think Zaha fits the profile of what we need better (unless we sign another right back and I guess get rid of Danilo).
I'm sure plenty of people will pillory me for this post or try to convince me how wrong I am. Pep has just led us to our greatest domestic season ever and I'm sure he knows what he is doing. I just can't get my head around how mahrez fits into our jigsaw puzzle though, espicially when I look at our right flank and see the weakness in our wide options there. I really believe that is the most glaring weakness is our team right now and taking pep at face value saying that we'll only make 2 signings, (defensive mid and attacker) I just can't beleive in my head and my heart that Mahrez is the right man.
