Arsenal are reportedly ‘considering’ a return for Leicester City winger, Riyad Mahrez, in January.

According to the Algerian outlet Le Buteur, the Gunners could return for Mahrez in January after failing to sign the winger from Leicester over the summer. In fact, Arsenal are allegedly ‘preparing an offer’ for the 26-year-old. Although, the amount of said ‘offer’ isn’t revealed.

Leicester reportedly demanded £40m from Roma in July after the winger handed in a transfer request. However, the Serie A side wouldn’t cough up such a huge amount and their interest died.

Arsenal, meanwhile, weren’t even willing to hand over £30m. Instead, we turned our attention to Monaco’s Thomas Lemar.

Although we would end up bidding £92m for the 22-year-old in August, Lemar is younger and a better winger.

Therefore, I don’t see us suddenly paying £40m for Mahrez now. No matter how desperate we are to replace Alexis Sanchez when he inevitably leaves in 2018.

What’s more, Arsene Wenger confirmed that Arsenal will return for Lemar in the future. Whereas he’s flat-out said ‘no’ when asked whether the Gunners have any interest in signing Mahrez.

Le Buteur does point out that they don’t see the deal going ahead anyway since negotiations take a while.

The Gunners had been linked with Mahrez since the previous summer. The Algeria international had just won the Premier League with the Foxes and also been given their player of the season award. However, the forward chose to sign a new deal with Leicester until June 2020, which he now seems to regret…

Mahrez himself admits he doesn’t know why Arsenal and Barcelona, who were both heavily linked with him over the summer, didn’t make official bids.

“I don’t know what happened,” Mahrez said last month.

“It’s football. You never know what will happen.”

This season, Mahrez has made 22 appearances for Leicester, scored seven goals and provided six assists.