Manchester City have raised their bid for Riyad Mahrez to £60million and Leicester are unsure where he is just hours before the transfer window closing at 11pm tonight.

Mahrez did not travel with the Foxes squad to Merseyside for tonight’s game against Everton and his team-mates are none the wiser having checked in to their hotel at Stanley Dock.

City will have to break their transfer record for the second time in 48 hours to seal a spectacular deal for Mahrez, after having a bid of £50m rejected yesterday and a £55m offer knocked back this morning.

Riyad Mahrez is pictured in training on Monday - however he did not take part on Tuesday

Pep Guardiola has targeted the Algerian, who has also been courted by Chelsea and Arsenal

Manager Guardiola wants cover for the injured Leroy Sane who is out for several weeks

The Algeria winger put in a transfer request after the interest from City, who signed Aymeric Laporte from Athletic Bilbao for £57m on Tuesday.

Mahrez was in a similar situation in the final 24 hours of last summer’s window, when he left his national team training base in Africa to hole up at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris in hope of a last-minute transfer.

He was playfully nicknamed Tom Hanks by Leicester players, in a reference to the film The Terminal.

Mahrez is desperate to join up with Pep Guardiola but unless Manchester City raise their bid significantly, the Srivaddhanaprabha family will be unmoved.

Leicester want closer to £100m for a player with two-and-a-half years left on his £100,000-a-week contract.

The 26-year-old is desperate to leave and did not train with the rest of his team-mates on Tuesday.

City boss Guardiola did not rule out signing Mahrez to strengthen his attack for the rest of the season after confirming that Leroy Sane will be out for between six and seven weeks with ankle ligament damage. City are already without striker Gabriel Jesus due to a knee injury.

'It's so difficult,' said Guardiola. 'It happened with Laporte because it's a buy-out clause. When you have to negotiate it's so complicated. Right now, it's the same as Alexis Sanchez and Laporte. It's not the place to talk about it.

'I have interest in a lot of players, good players. There are many. The window is open until January 31. We spoke many times with the club to see what is the best with the players we have.

The move comes just after City broke their transfer record to sign Aymeric Laporte

'We have just three strikers with Raheem Sterling for the next month and a half. Gabriel is coming maybe in the next five or six weeks. We don't have too much and we play every three days. We have to find solutions.'

Mahrez, a £400,000 signing from Le Havre in 2014, has been determined to leave Leicester for some time and issued a statement last May stating his reasons for wanting to go.

He underlined his ambition in an interview with Sportsmail last month, saying: 'Of course, I want to win more trophies. I've always had the ambition to win a lot of trophies. It's what we are playing for. At the end of your career, what you will keep in your head is the memory of winning trophies — Premier League, Champions League. Those are the only things you remember.'

However, the club's Thai owners do not need to sell and rejected a bid of £32m from Roma in the summer amid interest from a number of other Premier League teams. They are reluctant to lose the 2016 PFA Player of the Year without having time to buy a replacement before the window closes, and it would take a huge bid to persuade them otherwise.

City want to replace the goals of Sane, who suffered ligament damage from this tackle

Mahrez was a key figure in Leicester's title winning campaign and remains a key figure

Leicester believe Philippe Coutinho's £145m transfer to Barcelona and the £75m paid by Liverpool for Virgil van Dijk are benchmarks for valuing Mahrez. Guardiola admitted on Tuesday it is '95-99 per cent' certain there will be no other signings in this transfer window, but added: 'In, football everything can happen.'

Signing Laporte has taken the Spaniard's spending on new players to £450m since he took over at the Etihad 19 months ago — with £240m going on defenders.

Guardiola defended that figure as he pointed out that rival clubs are spending more after Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona broke the £100m barrier for Neymar and Coutinho. He said: 'Some clubs spend £300m-£400m on two players. We spend £300m on six players. At this stage, when you are Manchester City, when you want to compete at the highest level, you need to spend.'

Guardiola paid tribute to Laporte, who turned down City 18 months ago in favour of furthering his career at Bilbao. The 23-year-old Frenchman's arrival could see his compatriot Eliaquim Mangala leave City on Wednesday, with West Ham, Newcastle and Valencia all interested in signing him on loan.

Leicester believe Philippe Coutinho's £145m Barcelona move is benchmark for valuing Mahrez

Guardiola has paid tribute to Laporte, who turned down City 18 months ago in favour of Bilbao

MAHREZ SPOKE TO SPORTSMAIL IN DECEMBER... HERE'S WHAT HE HAD TO SAY On his career: 'Of course I want to win more trophies. I've always had the ambition to win a lot of trophies. It's what we are playing for. 'At the end of your career, what you will keep in your head is the memory of winning trophies — Premier League, Champions League. Those are the only things you remember.' On Leicester and previous failed transfers: 'They didn't want to sell me. They said, "Yes, (there will be) no problem if something comes up", but behind the scenes they were blocking stuff — talking to clubs but just not wanting to sell me. 'But I'm confident. Contract or no contract, I believe I will get to the top. When you have quality, and show it, there's no problem.' You can read Ian Herbert's full interview with Mahrez here. Advertisement

'We were going to do it in the summer,' said Guardiola. 'But I said to the club if Laporte can come now then it's better. He decided not to do it 18 months ago but now he is here.

'We are very aware of his skills. Since a young age he has played in La Liga so he has been on the big stages, playing in the Bernabeu and the Nou Camp.'

The uncapped Laporte hopes that joining City will improve his chances of being called up to France's squad for the World Cup. 'I hope so,' he said. 'I'm coming to a big club to achieve great things and obviously, the World Cup is a big thing.'

City face West Bromwich on Wednesday night at the Etihad Stadium and are smarting from the damaged ankle ligaments caused to Sane by a late challenge from Cardiff's Joe Bennett in Sunday's FA Cup clash.

It will rule the German out of next month's Carabao Cup final against Arsenal.

Guardiola has pleaded for football's 'artists' to be protected by referees but Albion boss Alan Pardew promised his side would also play tough against the runaway Premier League leaders. 'Maybe we should get him (Guardiola) a video of what it was like in 1972,' said Pardew.

'Check a First Division game, then you'd see a lack of protection. I understand his point, perhaps the challenge the other day was mistimed a bit. I understand you want to protect these great players.

'You don't want to see them leave through injury. But you still have to play rough and tough to have a chance. We'll go there with a tough gameplan, but we will not be encouraging those sort of challenges for sure.'