14 Apr 2015

'I'd take him': Boss confirms plan to sign 'maverick' €70m striker from Liverpool. No-brainer?

Over the last couple of months, Mario Balotelli's situation at Anfield has descended into utter farce, with the striker repeatedly missing games due to alleged 'illness', and Liverpool failing to get any return on £16m fee splurged on him last summer. Clearly, Balotelli has no long-term future at Anfield, and Serie A club Sampdoria have now confirmed their interest in taking the Italian off LFC's hands this summer.

When asked this week about signing Balotelli, Sampdoria Chief Massimo Ferrero told Gazzetta dello Sport:

“I would take him. He’d be the real Balotelli again here. He wouldn’t have too much pressure here in Genoa.”

Clearly, this is a no-brainer. I have nothing against Balotelli, and I've defended him many times this season, but he is a passenger at Anfield, and his contribution to the season is less than negligible.

I couldn't care less what Balotelli - charitably described as a 'maverick' by Hull boss Steve Bruce - gets up to in his own time; the media obsession with his every move is an absolute joke, and unlike practically every other site, I have never taken part in the endless sensationalisation of his off-field activities.

The same principle applies to other LFC players, too. Raheem Sterling, for example. Some fans claim that I hold some kind of grudge against him, but if that was true, I'd be gleefully highlighting his alleged Shisha incident like every other Liverpool site.

Again, I couldn't care less. I'm only interested in things directly connected to football, and in Balotelli's case, he has abjectly failed to fulfil his primary role in the team, which is to score and create goals. Getting rid of the Italian may not be easy, though. According to reports this week:

* Balotelli is 'adamant' he wants to stay at Anfield.
* His agent insists he won’t leave unless Liverpool pay up his £95k-a-week contract.
* Balotelli has two years left, which means a £10m pay-off.

This is not the first time that Balotelli's agent has insisted that the striker wants to stay at Anfield. When asked in January about the Italian's future, Mino Raiola told reporters:

"The plan is to continue at Anfield. I saw him Monday and told him: 'You have a four-year contract and I won't bring you away. Either you leave Liverpool for €60-€70m, or you'll die there".

Hopefully a compromise can be reached, but if the club cuts its losses, and pays up Balotelli's contract, it will basically amount to the Reds paying £26m for a striker who offers absolutely nothing to the cause.

It will be amazing if Liverpool can con some club into paying '€60-€70m' for Balotelli, but there's more chance of the Reds signing Lionel Messi than that happening.

Author:


45 comments:

  1. Thanks to FANTASTIC BR.

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  2. Welcome as it is you should save your praise until the end of the season.

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  3. With that kind of fawning, irresponsible over-praise BR is going to get a big head.

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  4. I can see new contract negotiations looming amidst pictures of him blowing up party balloons and smoking a pipe. Though in his case he'll probably be wearing slippers. ,

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  5. I find the whole Balotelli comming to Liverpool bizzare, we were linked with him for a while till BR said at a press conference that Liverpool will not be buying Balotelli (I cant remember his exact words, but he made it clear he wasnt going to liverpool), then we all but signed remy, then we let remy go and sign Balotelli..wtf ..I think our great and wise transfere commitee over rulled BR and thought Balo would be a better buy than remy, I dont believe BR wanted Balo in the first place, a manager buys a player and is asked buy a reporter " Brendan, what do you think Balotelli will bring to Liverpool" and he replys "TROUBLE", In my opinion that doesnt sound like a man who wants that player in his club.

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  6. There are accusations that Liverpool tried to use Remy's medical to force him to take reduced terms.

    Also there is a transfer committee at Liverpool, 2 members of which are former Man City people who should have known what Mario is like.

    He's just bone idle. Hope he regrets it all when he's finished. Waste of talent

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  7. One can only imagine what crazy Yoda-isms he'll come up with after a few tokes with Raheem and a lung full of N2O.

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  8. not surprised at your allegations it is clear LFC try to go on the cheap for the market unless its British players... i'm sure we could've gotten mkhtaryan/konoplyanka/mata if we paid there value worth for them instead we have lallana, joe allen (welsh xavi) and markovic (still iffy about him)

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  9. You have mentioned Sterling a fair bit though to be fair.... His agent seems like an utter moron though....Die here, thats exactly what'll happen to his career if he doesn't leave.

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  10. I imagine when Sampdoria get feed up with him and cotton on to the real Mario Balotelli, he'll end up playing for Ludogorets.

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  11. Am I the only one In favour of keeping Mario?

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  12. There's you and his agent

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  13. I already mentioned his agent

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  14. It seems all here respect the site's policy of sticking to commentating on matters ON the pitch but I personally couldn't resist a few harmless quips re the Sterling situation particularly as our manager had publicly remarked on them . As long as it doesn't affect their performance or tarnish LFC's reputation I am not bothered about what players ( or come to that the manager ) gets up to in their private lives . Having said that I do wonder whether both Suarez's and then Balotelli's behaviour has had some detrimental influence on young Raheem . Also where has Steve Peters been lately ?

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  15. I think he's had swine flu recently

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  16. He took the photos : )

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  17. Ha Ha ... well one of his " mates " did !

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  18. Isn't it ironical we rejected Remy on medical grounds and wasted all that money on Balotelli .
    Meanwhile Remy performs for Chelsea and we have had our 'fitter' players dogged with injuries all season !

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  19. I've sitten next to David Alaba, who's considered as the best LB at the moment smoking shisha quite a few times...
    Guaranteed his club doesn't like it but as long as he performs, who cares as long as he performs?


    People make mountains out of molehills once more. If he had already signed a new contract, there wouldn't even be one single article about the story.



    He's 20 years let him have a normal life with his friends, it certainly won't help the situation with Raheem if we make him our new scapegoat.

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  20. he'll end his career somewhere in the emirates im pretty sure

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  21. Here was me thinking it was Glen Johnson's fault

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  22. Or the MLS. He'll be at one or the other by the time he's 28 I would think

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  23. Well he put in a good shift yesterday and he seems to be rising above it all . I think it was good man management BR let him go off before full time to enable the crowd to respond and they demonstrated their appreciation . As you pioint out a lot of sportspeople 'smoke' and it usually stays behind closed doors . No doubt Raheem will learn which so called 'mates ' he can trust in future ......

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  24. Hopefully the fact one of his so-called mates has filmed that and then totally sold him out will be be a wake up call for the lad. I couldn't care less what he's doing in his private life but he needs to realise that he's not a normal 20 year old. The price of being rich and famous is that you can't just go have a night out like everyone else. You have to choose your company wisely and constantly be aware. It will be another learning curve for the lad

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  25. This is how i think the Mario Balotelli situation plays out this summer... Liverpool will look to get back the £16m spent on him.Italian clubs just like their football generally become tight and cautious with negotiations despite some clubs wanting him.We'll reject a truckload of loan offers throughout the transfer window.
    With a week to go Liverpool will get desperate and drop the soap in the transfer market again.Balo will leave on loan with a option to buy which won't end up being activated.We'll most likely pay some of his wages too.Italian clubs see Liverpool as a soft touch.There mentality is if they can get something for nothing why comit money on a transfer fee.
    They screwed us with Alberto Aquilani.AC Milan and Juventus mucked us about and eventually he went to Fiorentina for peanuts.Unfortunately see a similar thing happening with Balotelli.

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  26. It's no so much that they screwed as it is that English clubs have more money than sense and most of Serie A don't have a pot to piss in.

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  27. now.. time to use him many game..

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  28. When Juventus brought in Aquilani on loan in 2010.That season they bought Leonardo Bonucci for 13.3m.Krasic for 12.9m.Jorge Andres Martinez for 10.3m.Pepe for 8.6m.Alessandro Matri for 15.4m.Motta for 4.3m.Quagliarella for 12.9m.Marco Storari for 3.8m.They spent another 40m+ the following season when they had the option to buy.I left some players out.Juventus spent 124m in two seasons.Do you see my point?

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  29. Maybe it's the owner, who know

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  30. I think you've misconstrued the point I was making, but that's largely because my comment wasn't that well written with regards to tense.

    What I was trying to say that they didn't screw us over Aquilani, they just exploited the fact that we're bad at business and that the Premier League splashes the cash too freely. That's what I meant with the 'more money than sense' comment.

    If we're willing to spend about £20m on a decent but not brilliant Serie A player and offer him six-figures a week (I seem to remember his wage was said to be about £120k a week) and then decide we don't want him, what do you expect Serie A clubs to do? Pay through the nose for an overpriced cast-off? As you say yourself, we're soft touches. They're not screwing us, they're just showing an ounce of sense in their negotiations.

    The 'pot to piss in' comment was present tense because it reflects the financial reality of modern Serie A clubs. AC Milan. the biggest global brand of any of Serie A's clubs, may have spent 47.2m (I don't know whether that's pounds of Euros, you haven't specified) in 2011, but they only spent 16.5m Euros this summer (about £12m). Even Juve, Champions 3-times in a row and certainties to do it again this year, had a net spend (according to Wikipedia) of 5.7m Euros and they had no major departures to fund that spending.

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  31. VermHat I think you're reading too much into the screwed us line.Which probably wasn't the best term to use.The bottom line is Italian clubs see Liverpool as a club that they can easily Godfather into getting deals that benefit them only.It's up to us to stay strong and not be strong-armed into making bad deals.Maybe my first comment seemed to exonerate Liverpool for poor loan decisions, but that wasn't my intention.Our transfer business with players bought, sold and loaned has been below the standards you'd expect from a big club, for a very long time.I was just highlighting how Italian clubs walk all over us in the transfer market.Given the opportunity it will likely happen with Balo too.
    "Pay through the nose for a cast off" One Man's trash is another Man's treasure.Inter Milan thought Inter Milan saw Coutinho as a piece of trash, but we saw him a diamond in the rough.We played him and now his value has skyrocketed.Juventus and AC Milan played that 'cast off' regularly.It wasn't a Victor Moses situation where he could hardly get a game and went back to Chelsea with a not good enough tag.I think the buy option for Aquilani (if media reports was correct) for both Italian clubs was around the 11m mark.Hardly an extortionate fee for a player they used regualrly.I'm sure they could've negotiated a compromise figure in wages too if it meant AA securing a move back to his homeland and playing.Instead of getting splinters in his backs4de on our bench.
    Your right spending in Serie A has slowed down, but like i highlighted with Edinson Cavani we don't know if potential departures will free up cash.Also because we saw conservative last summer form Italy's big clubs that doesn't automatically mean that's guaranteed to happen in the next or future transfer windows.
    Mario Balotelli to be used a discount voucher on a wanted player from Serie A is probably the best chance of getting something decent back.

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  32. You've smoked shisha with David Alaba? That's pretty sweet, just sayin.

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  33. Balotelli will always have some buyers. He is more of a brand than a player. I expect minimum of 10mn transfer amount from his sale.

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  34. Hell yeah ;-)

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  35. yep, I can see us loaning balotelli to sampadoria and then send him to the MLS for almost no money

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  36. BR did not want Balotelli. I said it at the start of the season and JK responded to me by saying that it was ridiculous that the club would buy a striker without the managers consent. Well, that ridiculousness is now apparent.

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  37. 'Dogged with injuries' or plagued with Mysterious Ebola type illnesses.

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  38. Yes it's a shame he probably knows exactly who leaked the pictures as well.

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  39. That's freaking awesome in fact! Living in Australia, it's hard to even contemplate mere mortals sharing breathing space with the almost mythical entities that are top-level footballers!
    We fleetingly catch a glimpse of Brad Jones at an airport and collectively wet ourselves... well the 4 of us in Australia who actually follow the sport...

    Luckyyyyyyy

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  40. Mr. Point Of View9:50 am, April 15, 2015

    If u guys can get rid only 1 player, who would be? 45, 29 or 9?

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  41. 9 without question. Completely useless. Well....kinda hard to make a case that the other 45have been any use either. But then again , despite recent injuries/phantom illnesses, I do think 45 could have, and should have been used more. Let's face it, I think the back room boys thought Balo would instantly fill the hole Suarez left, and there's hardly any consistant striking partnership with Sturridge being out most of the year.

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  42. I think they 'screwed us' is spot on...ac Milan had a clause that stated they would have to buy if Aquaman made 25 appearances...on his 25th appearance they substituted him ya half time & said he's made 24 & half appearances therefore the clause cannot be activated....they didn't play him again!

    That's screwing us in my humble opinion

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