Liverpool FC Forum

supersub » Thu Mar 05, 2015 1:37 pm wrote:

kazza » Thu Mar 05, 2015 12:45 pm wrote:Our good run started when Mario stopped playing, he slows down the play too much and that is our game. I have no problem with him not playing. Against Basiktas he looked like he was trying to get sent off so we don't know what Rodgers knows. Every single manager has had a problem with Mario, it can't be coincidence.

our good run started when Brendan realised he was for the jump unless he capitulated and removed Gerrard from the DM role that all the so called experts said he was made to do for years to come.... he then had to bring in Can, Lallana and unshackle Coutinho and let the team play the high tempo game they so enjoyed last year...this was brendans last throw of the dice ....he used Mario ballotelli as his fall guy...man without morals with sun tan and shiny new teeth

Well said ,I firmly believe Carroll was treated with similar disdain.

Mario Balotelli's agent claims Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers is pushing the striker out of his comfort zone.

The 24-year-old has worked under the likes of Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini but it appears Rodgers is the one who has pushed the Italy international further than anyone has before in his career.

"Right now, I think Mario has a very interesting development for his career," Balotelli's agent Mino Raiola told RMC Sport.


He has found a coach who asks of him things that had never been requested of him until now, including the discipline of running without the ball.

Balotelli's agent Mino Raiola
"He has found a coach who asks of him things that had never been requested of him until now, including the discipline of running without the ball.

"This allows him to grow as a person and as a football player. He'll come out even stronger.

"He is proud of his team (Liverpool) and that is the most important."

Balotelli, who has managed just one Premier League goal, has had a less-than-impressive start to his Anfield career after a £16million move from AC Milan in the summer and has come in for criticism during his time.

He has started only once since November 8 - in the Europa League exit to Besiktas last week - and has scored only four goals, all in different competitions for the Merseysiders.

Having been an unused substitute for the second successive match Balotelli, after the 2-0 midweek win over Burnley, posted a cryptic message on Instagram.

The Italian wrote: "Someone doesn't like me but differently (sic) of what they say about me I'm a team player and I'm so proud of my team, of this win and of these fans! Let's keep going. Bravi Ragazzi!!! YNWA !!!"

kazza » Sat Mar 07, 2015 4:49 am wrote:Mario Balotelli's agent claims Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers is pushing the striker out of his comfort zone.

The 24-year-old has worked under the likes of Jose Mourinho and Roberto Mancini but it appears Rodgers is the one who has pushed the Italy international further than anyone has before in his career.

"Right now, I think Mario has a very interesting development for his career," Balotelli's agent Mino Raiola told RMC Sport.


He has found a coach who asks of him things that had never been requested of him until now, including the discipline of running without the ball.

Balotelli's agent Mino Raiola
"He has found a coach who asks of him things that had never been requested of him until now, including the discipline of running without the ball.

"This allows him to grow as a person and as a football player. He'll come out even stronger.

"He is proud of his team (Liverpool) and that is the most important."

Balotelli, who has managed just one Premier League goal, has had a less-than-impressive start to his Anfield career after a £16million move from AC Milan in the summer and has come in for criticism during his time.

He has started only once since November 8 - in the Europa League exit to Besiktas last week - and has scored only four goals, all in different competitions for the Merseysiders.

Having been an unused substitute for the second successive match Balotelli, after the 2-0 midweek win over Burnley, posted a cryptic message on Instagram.

The Italian wrote: "Someone doesn't like me but differently (sic) of what they say about me I'm a team player and I'm so proud of my team, of this win and of these fans! Let's keep going. Bravi Ragazzi!!! YNWA !!!"

No less pushing him out of the' team' than his comfort zone.

From the echo


Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli's Instagram rant - and what might lie behind it


     


  13:30, 18 March 2015 
By Ian Doyle
 

Just what has Balottelli been through? Ian Doyle ponders his past



Mario Balotelli is not happy.

The Italian has taken to social media to have a pop at his critics, suggesting they only see him on the football field and don’t know what he has been through in his life.

He has posted an angry video on Instagram giving vent to his feelings.

So what might Mario mean or be on about regarding ‘what he’s been through? Ian Doyle examines the background to his life and career to try and understand...

Mario’s difficult early days

Balotelli was born in 1990 in Palermo on the island of Sicily to Ghanaian immigrants Thomas and Rose Barwuah.

But when, having then moved to Brescia, intestinal problems made it too difficult for his parents to look after him, young Mario was placed into foster care with Franceso and Silvia Balotelli, a white couple from the town.

Despite a comfortable upbringing, Balotelli was inevitably made aware by his peers while growing up that his colour was not the same as the rest of his family.

A confused childhood

While red tape meant the Balotellis didn’t adopt Mario formally, he was nevertheless raised as one of their own alongside their three biological children.

There are contrasting reports over whether the Barwuahs had much interaction with the youngster during his childhood. They say yes; Mario insists otherwise.

Then in 2008 Balotelli claimed his birth parents had abandoned him and were only interested in him for his money now that he had become a professional footballer.

The Barwuahs maintain that isn’t true. Balotelli has since mended bridges with his birth mother.

Early racism

This would become a constant feature in Balotelli’s life.

From declining to celebrate goals during his youth career so not to draw any attention to himself, to being racially abused during his first professional game at the age of 15, the Italian has been regularly targeted.

Coming on as substitute for Lumezzane against Padova in Serie C1, Balotelli nutmegged an opponent with practically his first touch and was then hacked to the ground as retribution, prompting monkey noises from sections of the crowd.

Trouble being accepted by his country

Italian legislation meant that, despite living his entire life in Italy, Balotelli wasn’t able to become a full citizen until he was 18 years old.

It meant he was unable to play for any national youth teams until he came of age.

And even then, Balotelli was told by hostile home crowds that “there are no black Italians”.

Getting shirty

Having had an unsuccessful trial at Barcelona, Balotelli was signed by Inter in 2006 and moved to the San Siro the following year, making his debut in December 2007.


However, he would go on to be termed “unmanageable” by Inter boss Jose Mourinho and compounded his problems by wearing an AC Milan shirt on an Italian television show.

Balotelli apologised, but there was no turning back. Manchester City beckoned.

The rumour mill

City should have been a fresh start for Balotelli, but it was a case of the same old Mario, throwing darts at youth team player during a training ground “prank” and going back to Italy to visit a women’s prison “to have a look round”.

However, his outlandish behaviour meant it was easy for the gossip-mongers to generate their own Balotelli tales, such as confronting a school bully and giving £1,000 to a homeless man on the streets of Manchester.

Balotelli would get bored denying the stories, instead answering in the form of a message on a t-shirt. You may remember it.

Yet more racism

Abuse followed Balotelli around in Italy, usually with racist overtones.

Even supposedly well-meaning intentions were desperately misjudged, such as Gazzetta dello Sport apologising, ahead of Italy’s Euro 2012 clash with England, for depicting the striker on top of Big Ben in a reference to King Kong on the Empire State Building.

In 2013, having moved to AC Milan, a game against Roma was stopped when Balotelli and team-mate Kevin Prince Boateng were subject to racist abuse.

Balotelli also had to endure more monkey noises and being told “you must die, you must die”.

The following year, racist abuse was aimed at Balotelli by his country’s own fans during Italy’s training warm-up camp ahead of the World Cup in Brazil.

Balotelli, like many of the new breed of footballer, loves to interact with supporters.

You wonder why he bothers.

Scroll through his various posts and invariably there will be some sort of racist abuse among the responses.

When Balotelli tweeted “Man Utd... LOL” after their 5-3 defeat at Leicester City earlier this season, it prompted a torrent of abuse which the police investigated.

Of course, it was Balotelli himself who was disciplined in December by being handed a one-match ban after a post that was deemed to have racist and anti-Semitic overtones.

Anfield angst

Balotelli was warned by his own agent he was stepping into the last-chance saloon when he moved to Liverpool in August.

And while the striker has tried hard to ingratiate himself with his new fans – trying a bit too hard at times, it could be said – he has been unable to do so with matters on the pitch.

No sooner had he arrived when already there were rumours of a departure in January that was never realistically on the cards.

The Italian has made only 12 starts and just as many substitute appearances, scoring a meagre four goals. Even when he scored a pressure penalty against Besiktas it was overshadowed by him removing Jordan Henderson from the responsibility of taking it.

With Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling the preferred attacking spearheads for Brendan Rodgers, it seems likely Balotelli will spend much of the remainder of the campaign back on the bench.

And after the end of the season, who knows?

Liverpool have been forced to remove Mario Balotelli from their official Player Of The Year poll due to outside interference from rival fans

cardiff-red » Mon Apr 20, 2015 4:49 pm wrote:Liverpool have been forced to remove Mario Balotelli from their official Player Of The Year poll due to outside interference from rival fans

He must have been romping it. It would be some laugh if the club had to present him with it 

cardiff-red » Mon Apr 20, 2015 3:49 pm wrote:Liverpool have been forced to remove Mario Balotelli from their official Player Of The Year poll due to outside interference from rival fans

That's a joke!! No reds fan in their right mind would have voted for him - Brad Jones would surely have more votes!! He was a £16 mill gamble which did not come off and the sooner he's out of Anfield, the better..

He was no more a gamble than buying a lotto ticket I.e waste of money for stupid people.

His purchase alone should get Rodgers fired. Joke player , joke manager.

Mario Balotelli's agent says striker will not be leaving Liverpool this summer.

Nobody would want him  with the wage he is on.

He has only had one season and it has been difficult. I just sense he will do something good for us in the future.

Crazy horse can I have some of what you're smoking

Dundreamin is back » Wed May 27, 2015 6:43 pm wrote:Crazy horse can I have some of what you're smoking

+1

He's a terrible player, no where near good enough for the premiership, not even West Ham, Leicester etc.

Rodgers the fool agreed to buy him for 16m.

The Owners should get rid of that clown Rogers along with Balotelli, Borini, Aspas, Lambert, Lallana, Lovren, (assume Johnson going) and markovic,

Did Rodgers sign him? Really? I thought it was a committee?
They took a gamble on him, it didnt work, get rid