French defender will have cost Manchester City £1million EVERY league game when he leaves this summer

Eliaquin Mangala (R) vies for the ball against Stoke City's Arnautovic in a past match. [Photo: Courtesy]

Eliaquim Mangala will leave Manchester City for free at the end of the season — after costing the champions-elect almost £1million for EACH Premier League appearance.

City have paid out a ­staggering £56m in transfer fees and wages for the French international ­defender, who arrived from Porto four years ago.

He has played in just 57 top-flight games for the Blues – and that includes six coming on as a substitute.

City paid a fee of £43.5m for Mangala in the summer of 2014. Almost 40 per cent of that money went to two ­companies who held an ­economic stake in the player.

And the 27-year-old centre-back has also banked wages of just under £12.5m from City ­in a disastrous four-season stay which will end with him having made just 79 ­appearances for the club all told.

Eliaquim Mangala (on the ground) during his game for Everton. [Photo: Courtesy]

City’s outlay would have been even more expensive had they not managed to send Mangala on loan to both Valencia and Everton, as his dream move to the Etihad turned into a ­nightmare.

When he spent the 2016-17 season in Spain, half of his basic £80,000-a-week wages were paid by Valencia.

Mangala will ­become a free agent in the ­summer when his City contract ends.

Mangala playing for Valencia. [Photo: Courtesy]

Inter Milan are ­interested and Valencia are in the frame again after having decided the numbers didn’t add up when City offered them the player for just £15m last summer.

The Spanish club feared that paying City’s asking price and meeting Mangala’s wage ­demands would see them fall foul of Financial Fair Play ­Regulations – even though City were willing to subsidise the salary.

A few weeks later, Mangala ensured City would not recoup any cash on him at all when he rejected the chance to join Crystal Palace in a £23m ­deadline-day deal.

City scouted Mangala for over a year before signing him from Porto.

Within a year, then-boss ­Manuel Pellegrini decided he was not up to the required standard and unsuccessfully tried to send him on loan to Valencia, as a sweetener in the deal which saw Nicolas Otamendi arrive for £28.5m.

Mangala would eventually join the Spanish club on a 12-month loan deal when Pep Guardiola made it clear on his arrival in the summer of 2016 that the defender was surplus to requirements.

City have paid out £176.6m in transfer fees for centre-backs in less than four years.

As well as signing Mangala and Otamendi, they paid ­Everton £47.5m for John Stones in 2016, and then made Aymeric Laporte their most expensive player when they signed the Frenchman from Athletic ­Bilbao for £57.1m in January.