Mario Balotelli

[ACMilan]

Last night was a whole new Novel in the life of Mario.

It was a perfect storm for him to not only get his 2nd yellow of the tourney, but a straight red at the pure frustration and lack of service yesterday. My nerves were shot.

I got slapped by his maturity and team mentality instead. Barely took a foul. Kept composure. Came back to defend. Scored a vital goal.

Turning point

 

[Ray78]

Last night was a whole new Novel in the life of Mario.

It was a perfect storm for him to not only get his 2nd yellow of the tourney, but a straight red at the pure frustration and lack of service yesterday. My nerves were shot.

I got slapped by his maturity and team mentality instead. Barely took a foul. Kept composure. Came back to defend. Scored a vital goal.

Turning point

Your team have got incredibly lucky on this one.

 

[ACMilan]

Your team have got incredibly lucky on this one.

Was a terrible performance.

But when your team can play the worst football youve seen in.... ages - and still win. That's a good thing.

But Japan definitely deserved a point or more

 

[carlos tevez is a blue]

The lingering bitterness towards Balotelli is very strange. [size=200Did we make a financial loss on him? No.][/size] Did he lose us anything? No. Did he help us win anything? Absolutely. He was pivotal at key moments and in key games and boosted the profile of the club. Since he left he's praised the fans beyond anything I've ever seen, calling us the best in England, maybe the world. Whatever the warped reason for bitterness, it's time to let it go.

Was he not bought for 22 million and sold for 18 million?

 

[Stoned Rose]

Immaturity.He suffered it,try not to fall into the trap.

The word you were looking for is 'factual'.

Last season (City) 1 in 14
Last season (Milan) 12 in 13.

He simply couldn't be arsed. A similar goals to game ratio for us would've helped us tremendously in defending the title. We may even have gone on to retain it.

That in itself is reason enough to dislike him.

Bollocks

He was playing Well last season, even some of the hansens Had to admit that he was doing ok at one point, he just wasn't getting goals and his confidence was low. This happens, particularly with young strikers

If you're going to get involved at least try to make sense.

Was he playing 'well' or was he playing 'ok'?

Using the likes of Hansen to illustrate any point is farcical and discredits your argument hugely.

He 'wasn't getting goals' you say - yes and for a 'striker' with a lot of talent - that's pretty shit.

Being used as a substitute or rotated doesn't seem to have a negative impact on Chicarito, who may I remind you is also 'young' and my I remind you further cost about £6m, about a quarter of what Balotelli cost.

 

[Shadz69]

If you cant see that the fact he very infrequently applied the obvious talent he has for us, yet has been doing so in Italy and for Italy since he left us as a reason to dislike him I cant be arsed explaining it to you Skash.

Immaturity.He suffered it,try not to fall into the trap.

The word you were looking for is 'factual'.

Last season (City) 1 in 14
Last season (Milan) 12 in 13.

He simply couldn't be arsed. A similar goals to game ratio for us would've helped us tremendously in defending the title. We may even have gone on to retain it.

That in itself is reason enough to dislike him.

You must find yourself hating a lot of our strikers over the years.All strikers have lean periods for whatever reasons,it happens.I think the lad has the potential to be the best striker in world but it's all up to him and he has shown nothing but respect to City fans since he went,that in itself says a lot about him.Right player right club wrong time.It happens.

 

[Cellarite]

I hope and pray that he matures a little in Italy and comes back one day to finish off the job he started.

 

[Skashion]

You must find yourself hating a lot of our strikers over the years.All strikers have lean periods for whatever reasons,it happens.I think the lad has the potential to be the best striker in world but it's all up to him and he has shown nothing but respect to City fans since he went,that in itself says a lot about him.Right player right club wrong time.It happens.

Indeed, Tevez has had two longer goal droughts than Balotelli at his time at City but let's ignore that. Let's ignore that practically every striker going has had a lengthy goal drought. Let's ignore the fact that his goal ratio in his two years prior at City was so good, that, even at the height of that goal drought, Balotelli was still in the top ten all-time Premier League strikers at a goal every 149 minutes: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.ftbpro.com/posts/ian.stewart.palmer/77322/all-time-premier-league-scorers-goals-per-minute" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.ftbpro.com/posts/ian.stewart ... per-minute</a> These haters are beyond ridiculous.

 

[Wrighty Wrexham]

We should have played him as and out and out striker not out on the flanks.

And considering he was supposed to be a Mancini favourite why didnt he give him more game time.

Think Aguero and Tevez partnership not the best two similar players who arent the tallest or prolific one chance one goal merchants.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

You must find yourself hating a lot of our strikers over the years.All strikers have lean periods for whatever reasons,it happens.I think the lad has the potential to be the best striker in world but it's all up to him and he has shown nothing but respect to City fans since he went,that in itself says a lot about him.Right player right club wrong time.It happens.

Indeed, Tevez has had two longer goal droughts than Balotelli at his time at City but let's ignore that. Let's ignore that practically every striker going has had a lengthy goal drought. Let's ignore the fact that his goal ratio in his two years prior at City was so good, that, even at the height of that goal drought, Balotelli was still in the top ten all-time Premier League strikers at a goal every 149 minutes: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.ftbpro.com/posts/ian.stewart.palmer/77322/all-time-premier-league-scorers-goals-per-minute" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.ftbpro.com/posts/ian.stewart ... per-minute</a> These haters are beyond ridiculous.

It's not his lack of goals that frustrated me, it was his inability to impose his physicality on defenders often enough. Defenders should have been petrified of marking him, instead he spent far too much time on his arse rather than on his feet bullying them. I am factoring the lack of protection he got from refs into this equation btw.

I have very fond memories of his time with us and have no doubt he will become a truly great striker, but there's no reason he couldn't have done that in his time at City as he has all the ingredients.