Riyad Mahrez is on a collision course with Leicester after taking the remarkable step of leaving the Algeria national squad to force a move on deadline day.

Mahrez is staying at Leicester until January at the earliest despite flying to London in a bid to leave the former Premier League champions, in a move which bemused Leicester officials. Leicester were stunned yesterday morning to discover the Algerian FA had tweeted that Mahrez was given permission to leave the training camp to finalise a move to another club.

The tweet was later deleted and reports of Mahrez being spotted across Europe then surfaced for most of the day, sparking memories of Peter Odemwingie’s infamous crusade in January 2013 when he drove to QPR even though a deal was not agreed.