Mario Balotelli

[Paco]

Balotelli is making me seriously dislike Rogers for playing him every game.

 

Play borini, a kid from u21s, lambert or just play with all midfielders.

 

Anything but this fucking clown, the single reason why we are so bad this season and I said it at the villa game.

borini will only play if balotelli or lambert get injured. was he on the bench today.?

[eeyore]

Pretty sure brendan has bombed borini for refusing to come off against West ham. Hasn't featured since

[ratcatcher]

I dont like slagging our players but fuck me, Balotelli strolls around like he thinks the football world owes him something.

 

Seriously the lad needs to look at his game. He looks like he cant be arsed sometimes and then when he is in a good position, wants to take everybody on to show how good he thinks he is.

[Paco]

Pretty sure brendan has bombed borini for refusing to come off against West ham. Hasn't featured since

whats this?

[Alan Sex]

If I was Lambert I'd be crying into my tea after watching that and realizing I was behind Balotelli in the pecking order.

[Grinch]

If I was Lambert I'd be crying into my tea after watching that and realizing I was behind Balotelli in the pecking order.

 

The sad part is Mario really is our best fit striker.  The lower league lump lambert and the cunt that wouldn't fuck off in the summer aren't and never have been good enough to wear the shirt.

[Mathewbet1]

He played better in the second half, but im almost done with him. Taking pot shots when players are in a better position is frustrating and selfish. He lacks game intelligence and movement. He's also not a goal threat at  present, i'd like to think this is as bad as he can get , as he's a better player than what he showing. We need another striker in January.

[sir roger]

He was very poor today but he is still potentially streets ahead of Borini & Lambert.

 

He has never been a play up on his own striker but we are insisting on playing in this way with him.

[sh#t waffle]

He's just not very good at football, and I think we're a far worse side with him in it.

[Gym Beglin]

Lack of confidence is the main problem with Mario right now, he knows he's not playing well and with no other attacking player stepping up and scoring some goals balotelli is taking all the criticism and pressure.

 

Nothing has changed for me and I still think he will be a success after he gets a couple of goals and when hopefully the rest of the team step up and take some of the pressure off him.

Apart from the goals Lallana, Sterling, Gerrard, and Coutinho have scored, obviously...

[sir roger]

We've been awful with Mario, but we have left ourselves with no other options as Borini is completely ineffective & Lambert plays like he has an inner-ear disorder.

[Mathewbet1]

Never seen a striker that is so permanently on the back foot when in the penalty area. attack the space you fucking nugget. Then he stands around looking gormless when the ball by-passes him fuuuuccckkkkkkkkk He's the anti-suarez at the moment.

[Adebisi]

May as well be playing with ten men. I desperately wanted him to be good but I don't see it happening unfortunately. He looked like a player who was starting to fulfil some his potential at the Euros and now he looks like an Italian N'Gog. 

I'm worried. 

[RoboRiise]

A mixture of arrogance and desperation led us to do a complete 180 .

Arrogance that Rodgers must have believed he could succeed where others had failed to sort the bloke out...

 

Agreed, and I'm one of the ones who said I thought Brendan would be able to get him working, but

 

...we had fucked about the whole summer despite having the funds , the momentum , CL football , the Suarez money and not signed a top striker. That was unforgivable really especially as we had Remy flown out to the States to sign the fucking contract but to compound the fuck up we didn't stick with what we had until January and panicked.

 

I said in another thread I don't really feel we 'fucked about' in the summer really unless we wanted to jizz all the Suarez money on one player (and I'm not necessarily saying I wouldn't have thought about it but it obviously wasn't Brendan's plan) it seemed more the case that there wasn't the quality available at the right price.

 

I'm sure Rogers would have loved to get someone like Falcao but the terms of that deal take the piss, Sanchez made it abundantly clear that he would rather cut his balls off than sign for us, Costa was the same and these are the kind of players we would have needed to try to do something like replace Suarez as opposed to merely signing a player to play in his position.

 

I'm not going to get up in arms about not signing fucking Remy.  He's not at that kind of level, other than one season with Newcastle he doesn't even score a goal every other game and I'm not having it that the club just decided not to buy him for laughs - as far as I'm concerned if we give a player with a known heart irregularity a medical, have him checked out by cardiologists and then don't sign him that's fine by me.  It says a lot about how bad Balotelli has been that not signing Remy is any kind of issue.

 

I do agree that there was desperation in the Balotelli signing though and I don't really understand it.  It must have been clear relatively early in the window what the state of play was with regard to the big names, yet we were spending money on other areas of the team and trying to sell Borini, so was Remy really the only basket into which we'd considered dumping our eggs?  If so, that's shitty planning whichever way you dress it up.

[eeyore]

Borini was adamant he was going to take a corner even though his number was on the subs board. Took about 2/3 minutes to haul his ass off the pitch

[Mathewbet1]

Agreed we had plan A -  get Sanchez as part of the Suarez deal, but not a clue what the plan B would be. When time ran out we panicked and went for 16m for Mario, which is not a bad price , but he looking expensive for 16m at the moment. He cant play upfront by him self he needs to play off another striker. Short term solution is to push Sterling upfront, just off Mario. Im not even considering Borini as he offers nothing. Lambert has not looked at the races either.

[FanchesterCity]

Balotelli is not team player. He's a maverick.

I've said many times, he'll score a stunner once every 10 games or so, and people will say 'that's the ability he has', but the reality is that he has no ability for consistency which is what you need throughout a premier league campaign.

 

Balotelli is the throw of the dice you use when you have nothing left to gamble with. He's not the player include in your team week in, week out.

 

And once you factor in the negative effect in the dressing room... he's not worth the hassle.

 

I'm absolutely sure that a lot of team mates will say he's a great 'character' in the dressing room etc, and I'm sure that's true, but that character will wear very thin amongst players who actually want to win games, or more importantly silverware. Those players will soon see that his larger than life character doesn't cut the mustard on the pitch.

 

I always wanted the lad to do well at City. Doesn't every fan want a player to do well for their club? but in the end we made the right choice to sell, just as other clubs did. Liverpool will make that same choice too.

[ratcatcher]

Agreed, and I'm one of the ones who said I thought Brendan would be able to get him working, but

 

 

I said in another thread I don't really feel we 'fucked about' in the summer really unless we wanted to jizz all the Suarez money on one player (and I'm not necessarily saying I wouldn't have thought about it but it obviously wasn't Brendan's plan) it seemed more the case that there wasn't the quality available at the right price.

 

I'm sure Rogers would have loved to get someone like Falcao but the terms of that deal take the piss, Sanchez made it abundantly clear that he would rather cut his balls off than sign for us, Costa was the same and these are the kind of players we would have needed to try to do something like replace Suarez as opposed to merely signing a player to play in his position.

 

I'm not going to get up in arms about not signing fucking Remy.  He's not at that kind of level, other than one season with Newcastle he doesn't even score a goal every other game and I'm not having it that the club just decided not to buy him for laughs - as far as I'm concerned if we give a player with a known heart irregularity a medical, have him checked out by cardiologists and then don't sign him that's fine by me.  It says a lot about how bad Balotelli has been that not signing Remy is any kind of issue.

 

I do agree that there was desperation in the Balotelli signing though and I don't really understand it.  It must have been clear relatively early in the window what the state of play was with regard to the big names, yet we were spending money on other areas of the team and trying to sell Borini, so was Remy really the only basket into which we'd considered dumping our eggs?  If so, that's shitty planning whichever way you dress it up.

 

I kinda agree with a lot of what you are saying. But, given the strikers everyone seems to think we should have signed decided they wouldnt come here (and Im glad the club decided not to pay any of these prima donnas £250,000 a week or more just to satisfy some), we were kind of between a rock and a hard place.

 

Some people may say balotelli was a panic buy but given the position we were is what could we do? It wasnt feasible not to sign him, people would have screamed why didnt we buy a striker blah, blah, blah.

 

Did rodgers think he could make a silk purse out of balotelli where virtually everyone else failed? Im not sure. I guess he was up for the challenge. Who wouldnt be after all, there's nothing better than proving people wrong and polishing the turd!

 

I think balotelli's problems are in his head. He thinks he's an ace footballer. He thinks he's the centre of any team. Well no he's not. He needs to graft and I mean fucking graft because at the moment, he isnt putting a shift in.

 

He's a big powerful lad and he gets clouted around the head in the game today, he's sat on his haunches on the half way line rubbing his head while the oppos are breaking away on our goal. Fucks sake man up Mario.

[GUS]

People saying Mario needs to play off another striker. I agree. BUT being a lone striker does not excuse you being unable to hit the target from 7 yards out. 

[Mathewbet1]

Look at Bobby Zamora today and the problems he gave us...............and he did it by just running around a bit and making a few runs into space..

[Paco]

Balotelli is not team player. He's a maverick.

I've said many times, he'll score a stunner once every 10 games or so, and people will say 'that's the ability he has', but the reality is that he has no ability for consistency which is what you need throughout a premier league campaign.

 

Balotelli is the throw of the dice you use when you have nothing left to gamble with. He's not the player include in your team week in, week out.

 

And once you factor in the negative effect in the dressing room... he's not worth the hassle.

 

I'm absolutely sure that a lot of team mates will say he's a great 'character' in the dressing room etc, and I'm sure that's true, but that character will wear very thin amongst players who actually want to win games, or more importantly silverware. Those players will soon see that his larger than life character doesn't cut the mustard on the pitch.

 

I always wanted the lad to do well at City. Doesn't every fan want a player to do well for their club? but in the end we made the right choice to sell, just as other clubs did. Liverpool will make that same choice too.

interesting.

 

my mate is a city fan and he said we would adore him.

 

my opinion having not watched a lot of him admittedly was that hes lazy but he would score goals.

 

my opinion now is hes not lazy but hes a bit soft. hes shite at holding the ball up, he makes poor decisions under pressure, he slows us down and cant play up front on his own.

 

he didnt touch the ball in either of those breakaway goals but he still occupied defenders.

 

maybe we should just use him as a decoy.

 

I still hope that he can be a foil for sturridge.

[FanchesterCity]

Look at Bobby Zamora today and the problems he gave us...............and he did it by just running around a bit and making a few runs into space..

 

He made up for his lack of talent (compared with the top strikers) with a his effort, and using his attributes to the best of his ability... he held up the ball very well and use his strength.

 

Balotelli still doesn't understand that having talent isn't enough. You need to work hard enough to get the opportunities to show off that talent. It doesn't come to you on a plate. 

[cuppatea]

I didn't think anything on a football pitch could frustrate me more than seeing Glen Johnson cut inside and shoot with his left foot from outside the box (which can't possibly have a higher than 1 in 50 success rate), but Mario's half a dozen poorly attempted 35 yarders per game is really getting on my tits. At the moment he really is the place where attacking moves go to die.

[Mathewbet1]

Just look at Suarez he worked harder than any striker ive ever seen, yet he was the most talented ive ever seen.

[FanchesterCity]

interesting.

 

my mate is a city fan and he said we would adore him.

 

my opinion having not watched a lot of him admittedly was that hes lazy but he would score goals.

 

my opinion now is hes not lazy but hes a bit soft. hes shite at holding the ball up, he makes poor decisions under pressure, he slows us down and cant play up front on his own.

 

he didnt touch the ball in either of those breakaway goals but he still occupied defenders.

 

maybe we should just use him as a decoy.

 

I still hope that he can be a foil for sturridge.

 

When he arrived at City he was a bit of a character - and provided a lot of entertainment for us. A loveable rogue if you will, and that's why so many City fans like him. He's hard not to like as a person. City fans are sentimental in general, because that's all we've had to hold on to until recently.

 

I don't think many City fans would have him back, even though he's well liked. I'd rather have Sturridge back than Balotelli.

 

I don't think Rodgers was crazy to buy him. It was a punt, and at a relatively low price for 'sort of' marquee signing. The real question on Rodgers will be how long before he holds his hands up and admits he was worth a punt, didn't work out, sell on. As long as the financial loss isn't too great, there's no harm in going through 3-4 strikers until you get the right one. Not many managers get the right one first time. The nightmare is being stubborn and sticking with one that's not right. 

 

To be fair, strikers do need to be given a fair chance, and Mario's still got time to turn it around, but I think by the end of the season, you'll know for sure if he's your man (I don't think he is).