Mario Balotelli is a actually a ‘Low’ risk signing!

Balotelli has matured a great deal in the past 18 months

Risk: “The possibility that something unpleasant or unwelcome will happen”

However while Mario has no doubt garnered the wrong kind of media attention in the past, looking at the deal more objectively and in the light of just a £16m fee (€16m according to an comment by his Agent Mino Raiola, though this may have been a typo), most journalists are saying it ‘can’ be a great signing, ‘if’ Brendan Rodgers can manage a player Jose Mourinho once called ‘unmanageable’.

In this short article I am not going to talk about his past indiscretions (some of them not even true), but focus on aspects of the deal that mean signing Mario, especially at that price, is overall rather ‘low’ risk.

When a club of the stature of Liverpool sign any player, there is always a risk that the player isn’t able to perform at the level expected. There are different aspects of a player’s past experience / or lack of, that can make him more of a risk to the buying club. With the exception of his antics Mario actually doesn’t have many of the risks other new players have.

Players coming to Liverpool can be overawed by the scale of the club and despite performing at smaller clubs are unable to replicate it (most recently Iago Aspas). Mario has already played for Inter Milan, AC Milan and Man City.

He has become much more of a regular goalscorer since his move to AC Milan

Players perhaps haven’t performed in one of the big leagues in Europe. Mario scored 26 goals in 43 league games in an under performing AC Milan side in Serie A.

Players arriving even from other top leagues can find the tempo, physicality or pace of the Premier League a shock, and take time to adapt. Having played 3 years at City, scoring 30 goals in 80 games, when often he came on as a substitute and played wide in a front 3, is a very good record for a player in his very early 20s at the time.

Players arriving from less successful clubs can find they are not well suited to performing in European competition. Mario has scored 10 goals in 26 European games for City & AC Milan. Most of these in the Champions League.

Players who join a massive club likes ours can be overawed by all the internationals surrounding them. Balotelli has played with World Class players most of his career, going back to Ibrahimovic at Inter Milan, and has been a regular in the Italy squad since a young age. He is Italy’s first choice striker, scoring 13 goals in 33 games, a respectable tally when he hasn’t always been first choice and includes substitute appearances as a young player.

Players joining a Brendan Rodgers team where flexibility and interchanging of positions is important, can become lost when they have been used to playing just a single position in their previous club. Balotelli has experienced many different systems with a variety of managers, and has played as a lone striker, a number 10, an inside right, an inside left and in a font two.

Mario Balotelli is now engaged to be married and also has a young daughter. He isn’t the brash 18 year old Mourinho couldn’t handle, or the rumbunctious 21 year old Mancini constantly had to keep in line. In the past 3 seasons, Luis Suarez scored a goal every 130.4 minutes. Balotelli, who has played significantly less in the same period, a goal every 133.7 minutes. The difference is remarkably small.

Back in Italy he has been subjected to horrendous racial abuse and discrimination with little recourse from the Italian authorities, and yet his behaviour has, for the most part, been professional.

At 24, Balotelli should be approaching the pinnacle of his career and Rodgers can bring that out of him

Andrea Pirlo said of him recently:

“Mario has matured since he has been back in Italy. He will be the first to admit when he was younger he made some mistakes – but he is not that player any more. Anybody who still talks about him in that way is living in the past.”

No doubt Mario will make mistakes during his time at Liverpool, and he’ll have bad games as well. But his eagerness to join the club and take a pay cut, with incentives on performance, is surely a positive indication of his mentality. And in a world where Shane Long is priced at £12m, £16m is a great deal.

There are still aspects of his game that need to improve, first amongst those is a perceived lack of work rate when the mood gets him, but that reputation is primarily based on performances in much earlier years.

In Brendan Rodgers he has a manager who’s not only adept at coaching the best out of undervalued talents, but also looking after the man behind the footballer.

Mario needs our support, and there’s little doubt he will get it. Let’s buckle in and enjoy the ride.

You can catch more from me on my own blog: http://taintlessred.blogspot.co.uk/ or follow me on twitter: @taintlessred