Marseille rejected the chance to sign Premier League’s top rated player

Marseille turned down the chance to sign Leicester City forward Riyad Mahrez in January, according to France Football.

Mahrez, 24, is currently in the form of his life and notched his first Premier League hat-trick at the weekend to send Leicester back to the top of the table.

However, things could have been different for the Algeria international had Marseille president not laughed the deal off the table when the Foxes were locked in a relegation battle at the start of the year.

The Ligue 1 outfit were reportedly heavily in talks with Leicester over Mahrez only for the deal to collapse when it was then passed over to president Vincent Labrune.

“Do you really think Leicester City and USM Alger players can really have a place at Marseille in this project of ours? In short, in order to save us time and to remain professional, the probability that we take this opportunity is zero,” he is reported to have said at the time.

However, he will now be regretting his negligence, with only Neymar (8.78) garnering a higher WhoScored rating than Mahrez across Europe’s top five leagues so far this season (8.33).

In fact, no player has been awarded more man of the match awards than Mahrez (7) across the continent this season, nor has any player in the Premier League completed more dribbles than Algerian winger (50).