Re: being a " character" is not enough
Corky1970 - Seriously mate, what more do you want from Balotelli?
While I accept that he doesn't go charging around like Tevez, which strikers do? From memory I can't remember Tevez' closing down ever resulting in everything other than wasted energy (excluding the Barry goal at The Swamp).
Balotelli yesterday, at Blackburn and also in the Semi-Final worked his arse off and for you to say he's "not fit to wear the shirt", quite frankly makes you sir look like a penis. Maybe if you understood the game you would realise all the work he does off the ball, making runs in behind the opposition defence, making himself available to link up play in midfield, making runs to draw opposition defenders out of position. Mario's runs just aren't being picked out by our midfield at the moment because Toure, Barry and De Jong all look for the easy ball rather than the defence splitting passes Silva may be able to provide if he played in a more central position. Even defensively he is better than most strikers, by cutting off easy options for defenders to play the ball into midfield he even made Vidic and Ferdinand resort to lumping it which gives us far more chance of winning back possession than charging around like a headless chicken. The tactics we play means that Tevez' harrying and closing down usually result in nothing because the rest of the team don't back him up, if we played a Barcelona style "win it back in 6 seconds" and Mario stood there and didn't close down then I could understand your argument but we don't. When we lose possession we get back into a compact formation as soon as possible and contain the opposition attacks, that's not Balotelli's decision, he is told to drop off and stop the easy ball into midfield. Tevez sometimes goes on a one man mission to win the ball back but it's very rarely effective even if the fans (me included) love it, the simple fact is that Mancini sets the side out to be disciplined and Tevez plays with his heart rather than his head, sometimes to the detriment of the team.
Corky1970 - Seriously mate, what more do you want from Balotelli?
While I accept that he doesn't go charging around like Tevez, which strikers do? From memory I can't remember Tevez' closing down ever resulting in everything other than wasted energy (excluding the Barry goal at The Swamp).
Balotelli yesterday, at Blackburn and also in the Semi-Final worked his arse off and for you to say he's "not fit to wear the shirt", quite frankly makes you sir look like a penis. Maybe if you understood the game you would realise all the work he does off the ball, making runs in behind the opposition defence, making himself available to link up play in midfield, making runs to draw opposition defenders out of position. Mario's runs just aren't being picked out by our midfield at the moment because Toure, Barry and De Jong all look for the easy ball rather than the defence splitting passes Silva may be able to provide if he played in a more central position. Even defensively he is better than most strikers, by cutting off easy options for defenders to play the ball into midfield he even made Vidic and Ferdinand resort to lumping it which gives us far more chance of winning back possession than charging around like a headless chicken. The tactics we play means that Tevez' harrying and closing down usually result in nothing because the rest of the team don't back him up, if we played a Barcelona style "win it back in 6 seconds" and Mario stood there and didn't close down then I could understand your argument but we don't. When we lose possession we get back into a compact formation as soon as possible and contain the opposition attacks, that's not Balotelli's decision, he is told to drop off and stop the easy ball into midfield. Tevez sometimes goes on a one man mission to win the ball back but it's very rarely effective even if the fans (me included) love it, the simple fact is that Mancini sets the side out to be disciplined and Tevez plays with his heart rather than his head, sometimes to the detriment of the team.