kazza » Wed Jul 29, 2015 7:42 pm wrote:It's the time of year when managers have to talk up players they would like to personally chauffeur to another continent, bare-foot on a pedalo.
A straight face is fixed and potential buyers told the outcast is part of his plans so they’ll need to bring some serious readies to the table if his mind is to be changed.
It’s what Brendan Rodgers is doing with Mario Balotelli. Saying he’s training hard and his future is in his own hands, in the hope some mugs will give him half the £16 million wasted on him last summer.
Even though, if Balotelli wants to stay a professional footballer, he’s got as much control over his working life as a Nepalese welder stuck on a girder in a Qatar World Cup stadium.
It’s looking like he’ll head back to Italy, for a nominal fee, or on loan, with Liverpool paying most of his wages, and, if so, he’ll probably shrug and say “if Rodgers can’t coax out my genius that’s not really my fault, it’s his.”
Just at it was the fault of all the other managers who mistakenly believed they could polish this raw talent into a gem.
His number one admirer, Noel Gallagher, told talkSPORT this week that Balotelli has more potential than any other player to be a rock ‘n’ roll star. I hope for Mario’s sake he’s right because the chances of him becoming a true football star decrease by the season.
He turns 25 next month, and there’s a place in Italy’s European Championship squad to be had, so you’d think that this summer he’d be desperate to get his career back on track by hitting the gym or going the extra mile with a personal trainer.
Instead we have one image of him: Cracking up his mates as he tries to head a ball into a bin while riding an electric two-wheel scooter.
A contrasting image of another striker who made a big money move to England last summer has just emerged on You Tube. It’s of Alexis Sanchez working out on a Chilean beach, three weeks after winning the Copa America, and halfway through his summer holiday.
As Bullseye’s Jim Bowen would have put it to Rodgers “have a look at what you could have won.”
Here was the man he’d wanted to replace Luis Suarez looking like a lean, muscular, intensely focussed machine, priming himself to make an even bigger impact in his second Premier League season.
Anyone comparing the image with the scooter-riding Balotelli would conclude Arsenal got Rambo while Liverpool got Dumbo.
Jose Mourinho talks about Eden Hazard being better than Ronaldo but I’m with Arsene Wenger. The next global superstar playing for an English club might just be Sanchez.
Apart from natural talent, his hunger and work-rate are phenomenal, which is why he played 72 games in the last calendar year at club and international level. And why he’s probably pounding the beach right now.
Wenger knows what a tremendous asset his work ethic is as he tries to teach younger players how to win. Rodgers meanwhile, knows what a burden Balotelli’s attitude is, which is why he wants him out.
Sanchez cost £33million but he’s priceless. Balotelli cost £16 million but, currently, he’s worthless. Because he has no appetite to work or learn.
You want to know why it’s always you, Mario, who managers wash their hands of? Because, unlike Sanchez, who isn’t happy until he’s squeezed out every drop of his considerable talent, you lack the professional pride to attempt it.
Which is strange. As pride usually comes before the fall.
Posted: Sat May 30, 2015 2:27 pm
I reckon it was that club looking for a bit of PR as they had to of known he was never going to accept it. Its a bit of an insult to him in fairness but I thought he handled it well.