Waste Of Talent

I know it sounds harsh but Balotelli even though he's still young, has wasted his career away, from his rants on social media, to insulting many big and respectable football characters to wasting his talent at Anfield last season. Balotelli is never going to be the player he was promised when he first bursted on to the scene when he was at Inter, where he was dubbed the best young player in the world. Things may have been different if Daniel Sturridge was fit for most of last season they may have been a formidable two, but we'll never know now will we?

There's a time for everything, I'm not going to lie I found the Italy forward funny and entertaining at times, his interview with Noel Gallagher on Football Focus a few years ago was legendary. But the former Man City player needs to let his football do the talking and show the world why he was dubbed one of the best talents in the game. On his day Balotelli is amazing, but how often do we hear people say this, he chooses when he wan't to play, and to have this attitude in modern day football will get you no where.

He may be my brothers favourite player God only knows why, and Pirlo may have sang his praises in his biography but Ballotelli has never hit the heights, because he's cocky, lazy and too controversial, what ever many think of him, the facts speak volumes and the stats don't lie he should be better than he is, and leave this childish things away. Steven Gerrard who blasted him in his new book, this is what the England legend had to say "In my last season, Brendan Rodgers came to me at Melwood one day in mid-August. We had a chat on the training pitch. He said, 'You know we've missed out on a couple of signings. I'm basically left with no option but to have a bit of a gamble.'

Brendan paused before he spoke again: 'The gamble is Mario Balotelli.' My instant reaction was, 'Uh-oh.'

"I'd never met Balotelli but I'd heard all the stories about the indoor fireworks and Jose Mourinho describing him as an 'unmanageable' player. I could see that, in the right mood, he was a quality footballer but the rest of his career seemed like a spectacular waste of talent. That was my opinion of Balotelli.

"But I also had to admit that, when he played for Italy, he seemed able to switch on his gift like he was snapping on a bright light. Brendan implied that Balotelli didn't have anywhere else to go – and it seemed as if Liverpool would be Balotelli's last chance to shine at a major club. He would be offered a strict contract. Any bad behaviour would be punished.

"I reminded myself that I had always allowed every new player to come into the club with a clean slate. Balotelli's reputation tested that resolve but I tried my best to be open-minded. He made an immediate impression when we were doing work on our defensive set-pieces and Balotelli said to Brendan: 'I don't mark on corners. I can't.'

"I nearly fell into the goalpost. I was thinking, 'What are you? Six foot three, and one of the strongest men I've ever seen on a football pitch? And you can't mark on a corner?'

"Brendan was very firm. He said to Balotelli: 'Well, you can now – and if you can't then you're going to learn.' That was the first conflict between Brendan and Balotelli, on day one, but the manager stood up to Mario really well. From that point, Balotelli started marking on corners.

"I knew that Balotelli would simply not put in the work we needed from a lone striker. Away to Basel in the Champions League, Balotelli started the game and he was hopeless. After his promising debut against Tottenham he had lapsed in training and the subsequent games. His demeanour was very poor. I made up my mind pretty quickly after that about Balotelli.

"There was no friction between us but I could see Mourinho had been right when he said Balotelli is unmanageable.

"He is very talented with the potential to be world class, but he'll never get there because of his mentality and the people around him. Balotelli's always late, he always wants attention, he says the wrong things on social media.

"For me, he doesn't work hard enough on a daily basis. You're always fighting a losing battle with Balotelli. He does too many things wrong."

If this is what Gerrad thinks whose played with many great players, I wonder what many think even Mourinho said he was "unmanageable" But he can turn it around but I don't see that happening. Highly doubt it.