Balotelli has yet to show his best form for Liverpool
After possibly his most weak game for the Reds since he joined Liverpool, the Italian strike has come in for a great deal of criticism for his lazy and lax performance in the Wednesday night group game against FC Basel and, throwing a further spanner in the works, his manager has now admitted that Balotelli was the best Liverpool could get.
Ahead of Saturday afternoons game, Rodgers said “I always said it was about availability and affordability of players. Mario was the one right at the very end who was available for that. I said when he came in that it was a calculated risk and it’s something I have to work on to try to make it work for the team.”
He continued, “You assess what the group had. We brought in Rickie Lambert as someone who can play some games for us and come off the bench and be an impact player for us in certain games. Daniel is a top Premier League player but has shown during his time here that he does get injuries so we needed to prepare for that. Obviously Fabio Borini looked like he was on his way out [to Sunderland].
“We had attempts for other strikers that didn’t materialise for one reason or another so it left us right at the end of the window with a decision on whether just to go with what we had, when experience told us we were too light, or take a calculated risk on a player who has quality and then could we get it out of him consistently?”
Talking of Balotelli himself and the player’s recent performances, Rodgers added “In terms of his behaviour he is consciously trying to work hard at what we demand here, the intensity and work rate. I think in terms of goals, he needs to improve. It is as simple as that. At this moment he has not hit the numbers he will have wanted.”
With the Reds’ main striker still seemingly some time away from being fully fit, Liverpool really need to be able to rely on Balotelli to deliver but some may deem Rodgers words harsh. How do you feel Balotelli has performed so far and does he need more time to fit in?
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Ballotelli can not play upfront on his own. It is that simple. So far, he hasn’t played well, however, only a few players can hold their hand up and say they did. The list of under performers is long. Starting with the goalkeeper, lovren, sakho, Gerrard, coutinho …to name a few.
Rogers, need to look at himself as well. Learn to out a game plan that gurantees a point at least . I’m talking Basel. What what the game plan? Poor in defence, poor in possession, didn’t create… Lambert comes on with no obvious plan to utilise him properly. It was a must not lose game and we did just what we didn’t need to…lose.
Rogers is looking for a scapegoat. And he bought one in the shape of Ballotelli. A much deeper analises is required Mr. Blaming your striker is not good enough.
Brendan has failed to bring in the quality expected with the money he has spent and sadly Liverpool’s style, organisation and attitude are all called into question now.
Seemingly neither the players nor Rodgers are learning from their mistakes. Even with injuries we look rather short on depth and ideas. A team still full of “potentially” good players rather than consistent and dependable options.
Mario is no lone striker, Markovic is no starter, we have no suitable cover/alternative to Gerrard and despite wanting to protect him (how has he?)19 year old Sterling is a heavily relied upon player.
The money has been poorly spent on all but the left back, loanee right and hopefully Lallana. Whats more damning is that an underperformance of Lovren & injury to Sturridge has the team in turmoil.
Ballo isnt doing great but has little to work with, but with an injury prone Sturridge, Ballo is looking like thoughtless signing being that in our current system he only compliments Sturridge, not providing an alternative. This is Rodgers problem and naivety. Along with defence its a big test for him and right now Rodgers must do better.
Perfect assessment
I’m starting to think Brendan is the one to be blamed, for his naivety and his lack of ideas in the absence of few starters, and not any individual players.
It is a pity that we spent over 100m & are now crying b/c of injuries to a few player. The money we spent Markovic could have enticed Bayern to sell Rhaqiri to us. I am most pained cy Marlovic signing b/c jordon Ibe is ten times better than him. BR IS The poorest of all the coaches in the epl . He is bereft of tatctics & every coaci knws how to outwit him. It is a pity we have such amateur as our coach.
I couldn’t understand ibe going outvon loan. We have lots of great teenage players who will not get a chance now we are back in the cl. The careful nurturing of our young talent has now gone in the mass stampede to buy as much foreign rubbish as possible in one go
For all of BR complaint about lack of goals from his recruits, why not play Suso, who had shone in the Boro game ?
BR is what he is a over hype loud mouth who had won ZERO titles in his entire career. Rafa won La Liga even before his success with us (CL, FA Cup, 2nd in the league, consistently playing in the CL) and he has no 100 mill to spent in a single season.
Our rival MU at least have some guts and took decisive actions, install a real championship manager and bought real, world class players. They have Falcao and we have Balo, seriously who would you rather have ?
Balo is not a bad player but he is no world class player (noticed how the new Italian National team manager was quick to drop him?), we needed one right now and it was a cowardly act by BR to shift the blamer to Balo.
As i said a long long time ago, for us to go places, we need a new manager, one like LVG who knew exactly what he is doing. It is often said by his Fans that BR is a quick learner, that is the problem, we are a club that wish to return to the summit and we hires a manager that learns on the job, hmm…..
We need someone like Rafa, he is one of us and would always be, gosh he even return to Liverpool on his break. BR can pretend to be one of us but he never would be