After Liverpool successfully secured the signing of Mario Balotelli shortly before their clash with the impressive Manchester City, we thought we'd take a look at whether this was a genius move or whether Liverpool were doomed. Please feel free to add comments with your opinions, I'd love to know what others think!
I won't bore you with Balotelli's past, who he played for when he was 11, how many goals he scored for them, what his favourite colour as as a child etc., what I want to talk about is his impact on the Liverpool team.
Liverpool nabbed Balotelli for a fee reported to be around £16m (BBC Sports) and I think this is a pretty good price. If you go on twitter you'll see all the comparisons like the fact that Balotelli only cost Liverpool £5m more than Fulham paid for Ross Mcormack and if you look at it like that then it probably is good value. However, don't forget, Milan were trying to sell him and I can imagine it's incredibly difficult to push the price up with someone who has a history like Mario does. I think only time will tell if it was good value for money but he definitely represents a huge risk.
When Balotelli was at City, I was never a huge fan. I appreciated that he had a few moments of brilliance but they were very few and far between. If I'm honest, I thought he was overrated and every time I'd seen him, he seemed to be sulking and ineffective. However this doesn't seem to be the player that Milan signed. I think Milan was a great move for him, he left the English media behind and had a chance to start again in his home country. He also had a big reputation and this excited the Milan fans and this seemed to encourage him. Balotelli made a huge impact scoring 12 goals in 13 appearances and looked to be threatening to show some of his talent. He almost became Milan's talisman and in my opinion he benefitted from being a big fish in a comparatively smaller pond than City's.
Although last week Roma's sporting director inisisted Strootman was not for sale, Louis Van Gaal will try to throw Juan Mata into the deal to tempt the Italian giants.
Mata could initially join Roma on loan with a view to a permanent deal.
