So, what next for Balotelli?

Let's have a look at his Liverpool career so far:
-He has 2 goals in 18 appearances, 0 in 12 PL games.
-Rodgers has said that he doesn't fit Liverpool's high tempo and high pressing playing style.
-Doesn't play even when his competition is out of position Sterling, Lambert and Borini, let alone when Sturridge comes back.
-The Liverpool fans have already replaced the "Mario fantastico Mario magnifico" chant with "Fabio fantastico Fabio magnifico".
-The most notable things he's done with the red jersey has been getting banned for posting a racist and antisemitic image and missing sitters left and right.

So, does he have a future with Liverpool? Where should he go now? Who is willing to take him?

You don't understand , Balotelli is living the lyfe , where he does that is of little importance . The problem is in his attitude , in his mentality , both as a person and especially as a player.

When his former captain at Milan , Montolivo , is asked what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Balotelli and he says he laughs , you don't need to look further than that.

Balotelli could have been twice the player he is by now , let alone this sad excuse that he is . He's not willing to work to get there , to be vital for a team. Milan tried to make him our weapon and we paid dearly for it. Liverpool should sell him right now if you ask me , the dude doesn't deserve to be in such a club like Liverpool .

He needs to play in clubs like Fiorentina , Everton , Sevilla , Wolsfburg , these kind of clubs . He failed to establish himself at Inter , Manchester City , Milan and now Liverpool. He also lost his place in the Italian NT .

He must be forced to succeed or simply perish away from the grand scheme of things , how much talented he is and what he could do is one hilariously irrelevant matter as of now . He's not 19 anymore , he's almost 25 ffs .
Such a move will force him both mentaly and physicaly to work to achieve and succeed , if he wants to be a major player . 2nd , he must find a team that wants and needs what Balotelli brings into the game. He's not willing to adapt , he wants everything around him to adapt. So better sell him where they need what he has to offer , rather than look to change a player who won't.

Why do you think he'd fit in at Wolfsburg? Because they offer an ample supply of fast cars as goodies for the players?

He should go and build his career from scratch at a place where there is no pressure.

Tottenham usually like their rejects.

I think Liverpool would be wise to just take it easy. It's obvious Balotelli wasn't the only one performing badly for Liverpool, and of course he gets singled out.
Now they're getting results, and the witch hunt will tone down too.
They can just see what happens, why would they feel the need to sell a player they just bought, making a loss.

didn't know about that but i guess it would be a plus for Balo lol

I mentioned Wolfsburg to suggest a team that nowdays won't be winning their league , nor they are particularly expected to . Same to Europe. Balotelli seriously needs to lose what he freely is given to him all this time , players don't just move around the big clubs just because of their name.

It's around time everyone shuts him the door and he finds himself in a team that he will either be forced to achieve results or perish from the big scene. Raiola , his agent , did say when he joined Liverpool , that it was his last chance. Let's see.

As for if he's an issue for Liverpool , well , obviously Balotelli himself isn't their main one , or one of their biggest issues. However , Balotelli isn't even remotely usefull there anymore , nor did he ever proved elsewise. I don't know about witch hunt , neither i am the expert on Liverpool's case , but imo , he's been pretty useless at Liverpool anyway. Even if Liverpool gets it right eventually , that doesn't necessarily mean Balotelii will transform to what Liverpool ideally expected of him.

It's just my opinion , but i think Liverpool should sell him . He has been even worse than he was last season , that should be about enough for Liverpool . If they want to keep him , they will have to build everything around him . If they are prepared to do that.. let them do it and see what happens when Balotelli isn't playing , or when he doesn't feel like it

I still think when Sturridge comes back Balo will explode.

In what role though?

Current 3-4-3 is working great. Where does he fit?

MLS

Come to New England Balo. Here you can post as many controversial pictures to Instagram as your heart desires and because you're a star the league won't ban you and our media won't even notice or drill you for it. They'll be more concerned about what a Patriots practice squad player had for breakfast than whatever shenanigans they crucify you for across the pond.

RealGunner wrote:In what role though?

Current 3-4-3 is working great. Where does he fit?

Pretty much. The formation is working well, no reason for Rodgers to sacrifice the formation to fit in Balotelli and give him the chance to partner Sturridge.

Sturridge will come back and play the lone striker. Balotelli's career at Liverpool is very numbered. Rodgers doesn't even want him anymore and it's evident. At this point I think it's the case of finding someone who will take him out of our hands than anything else.

I personally would not be against giving him a chance with Sturridge because he really does deserve a shot when we are doing well and playing decent football, because the whole team was awful when he was starting for us a few months back.

But like I said, we have finally found a formation for this current squad of players we have at our disposal that works well, would be crazy to change it for a guy who looks like he doesn't care.

RealGunner wrote:He should go and build his career from scratch at a place where there is no pressure.

Tottenham usually like their rejects.

Not even good enough for Tottenham imo. There is pressure at Tottenham as well you pos

In my opinion and from what i have seen from Balotelli at Milan , pretty much the only time in his career where he was a regular week in week out . His best and ideal position and role , is playing second striker , in a 4-1-2-1-2 , on the left . That , with a very energetic dude to partner him , who will run around a lot just to compensate and exploit opportunities or force mistakes , because Balotelli won't .

This way he could be very dangerous , especially if the team values positional play . He may have that typical CF body type , but he's not a classic CF , nor he will spearhead anything . Nor will he poach a lot , neither he will make enough instinctive movements. With a few words , on the ball as a CF he's meh-sometimes-good.. off the ball he's always all the time bad . He's terrible off the ball . Half his games off the ball automaticaly mean his team plays with 10 , until they get it back .

Yeah , if Liverpool is willing to drop other players who may be doing well as they are , change the formation and see what they need additionaly get to have a proper diamond formation , then yes keep Balotelli and play him there. If anyone or any team thinks he's worth it , Balotelli maybe , can be important for said team . And i say maybe because just a formation and just playing where you like is just about 50% of it all and i am being generous . Prefferences & technicalities will only help so much when your football IQ and desire is that of a carrot , or when Balotelli plays the tough lad and fixing his muscles and all that like an idiot and 9 out of 10 times shielding the ball he dives or gets his ass handed to him .

Come back to Parma on loan, pair up with Cassano, rescue the team from relegation, redeem himself in front of Italians. One can dream, either nut balls like Osvaldo or nothing.

He would suit a team like Everton imo

Maybe we should start to consider that Balo himself is very happy with how his life has panned out, and he's not motivated to try and do anything more when he can make million and still play at big clubs for the time being.

Wouldn't shock me.

Needs a proper manager to give him a proper chance.

he need to play in front of riquelme to recover the goal drought disease

forlan already proved it

Red Alert wrote:Needs a proper manager to give him a proper chance.

He's been given that already. Or you might want him at Napoli amyright?

He's been a victim of the circumstances at Liverpool, somewhat.

We have struggled to score goals all season and it's easy to look at the striker and say it's his fault. But nobody in our team has been scoring many goals. Gerrard is our leading scorer in the Prem with five (5) and three of those are penalties.

Earlier in the season Balotelli was asked to do what Sturridge does and play the lone striker in a wide 4-3-3. Yet he obviously isn't suited to that role. Now, when we are playing better as a team and starting to score more goals and create more chances, he's (harshly) out of the manager's favour and can't get minutes.

It's a tough job to look good when you're first used wrongly and the whole team is playing crap and when things finally improve you can't get in the team. Some are going to say "you're improving because Balotelli isn't playing", but Borini and Lambert aren't better players than Mario nor the reason why we have improved.

I hope he gets a chance to play together with Sturridge, because then he could play as second-striker or attacking midfielder, depending on the formation. But there's nothing really indicating that Rodgers has plans to use him as anything other than an out-and-out striker, so I'm not very hopeful about Mario's future at Liverpool.

Tony Barrett ‏@TonyBarretTimes 4s4 seconds ago

Rodgers on Balotelli: "If you can't press, you can't be a part of the team. It doesn't matter who the player is."

EDIT:

Here's the full quotes. Barret's tweet makes it seem like Rodgers is throwing him to the dogs.

"We've made a change structurally in the team for the pressing and creativity to come back. He is a player that will work very hard now to get back in, but it doesn't matter who the player is or what he was bought for, this is a collective that is about the team and if you want to contribute then you have to be at it every single day in training in order to be in the squad on matchday.

"He was fully understanding. He saw the level of our performance against Chelsea and in fairness to him he actually said it was probably a struggle for him in terms of how he would play the game because he's naturally been a box player. There is much more asked at this team and in the intensity of the team. He saw it clearly on the field the other night and in the last six, seven weeks or so.

"I am confident he will respond."

There hasn't been a game this season where I haven't seen Balotelli NOT press. lmao

In fact, he was the only one pressing when he was playing.

I hope for Balotelli's sake he leaves. Would like to see who's the next scapegoat. Would it be his fellow Italian Borini?

Red Alert wrote:There hasn't been a game this season where I haven't seen Balotelli NOT press. lmao

In fact, he was the only one pressing when he was playing.

I hope for Balotelli's sake he leaves. Would like to see who's the next scapegoat. Would it be his fellow Italian Borini?

So why doesn't he play?

VendettaRed07 wrote:MLS

Come to New England Balo. Here you can post as many controversial pictures to Instagram as your heart desires and because you're a star the league won't ban you and our media won't even notice or drill you for it. They'll be more concerned about what a Patriots practice squad player had for breakfast than whatever shenanigans they crucify you for across the pond.

Read my mind ffs

I mean what does he have to lose at this point?

Would be such an interseting signing for just about any MLS team.

One can dream....

Spoiler:

Katy Perry wrote:

Red Alert wrote:There hasn't been a game this season where I haven't seen Balotelli NOT press. lmao

In fact, he was the only one pressing when he was playing.

I hope for Balotelli's sake he leaves. Would like to see who's the next scapegoat. Would it be his fellow Italian Borini?

So why doesn't he play?

Because we have a deluded manager.

wait for his next chance and try to prove himself. I dont have much expectations from him in this season. He might still get few appearances because Rodgers may go for an occasional diamond formation. I know 3-4-3 is working great but I still believe that when Studge comes back, BR may go back to 4-3-3 depending on the game off course.

I think from the next season, he will have more of understanding of what everyone around him is doing, so may be he will learn to adapt a bit to Rodgers style. Then it also depends on if Rodgers will be still at Liverpool in the next season.