Should Man City Just Cut Their Losses And Flog Mario Balotelli?

Chris Wright

29th, January 2013

11 Comments

By Chris Wright

Let’s just clear one thing up before we start: by ‘flog’ we mean ‘sell’, though we suspect that there are more than a few City fans out there who’d welcome the chance to thrash Mario with pickled birch rods given his recent form.

With Milan known to be sniffing, Manchester City would appear to be in a viable position to offload problem child Mario Balotelli back from whence he came this month – though with only a couple of day’s worth of window left, they’re facing a somewhat of a hurried decision.

Let’s face it: City must be sorely tempted. Balotelli’s been the square root of anonymous for them for months. He’s neither use nor ornament. There have been the same old periodic flashes, but his demeanour – the studied sulky caricature he plays when he crosses the white line – sucks all of the sparkle out of his game. There’s just no payoff.

Whenever selected, City have been left fielding ten men + one moping, tempestuous Mario.

The counter argument is that Balotelli is positively groaning with potential and that alone should be worth investing in as far as City are concerned, though we’d stress that ‘potential’ is worth approximately nada if it’s not going to be realised any time soon.

Sure, we’ll miss the sporadic ‘madness’, but one thing’s for sure: Mario Balotelli hasn’t entertained us on a football pitch since Euro 2012 as far was we can recall. That’s just not good enough for someone so bolshy.

Balotelli’s had more chances than he deserves to prove his worth, capitalising on the ersatz father/son relationship he has with Roberto Mancini. Where other managers would have cut him adrift, Mancini continues to have undying faith in his boy, his project – though there are higher, executive powers at work now.

We’re led to believe that the two parties are ‘discussing the sale’ today and, should Milan quit with their ‘subsidised loan’ nonsense and stump up the £20-ish million that City are chasing, would you blame them for washing their hands? “Hey Silvio, he’s your problem now.”

What say you Pies people? Time for Man City to cut their losses?

Posted in Featured, Man City, Newsnow, Opinion, Serie A, Transfers & Rumours

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11 Comments

  1. Zam says:

    Not only would City be better off without him, he’d be better off in Italy. It’s the perfect move for all parties.

  2. jojo says:

    @ Zam:

    Well, not for all parties. Not for Milan or Juventus at least. City should cut its losses and should be glad to do so. There are enough replacements that City can get for a similar transfer fee they received.

    If Mourinho and Mancini can’t get Balotelli to shine, who can?

  3. barf says:

    As much as I love these types of characters in the premiership, he really hasn’t done anything to warrant more chances at City as far as I can tell, especially with Dzeko now looking more settled.

    Mario isn’t a bench warmer I think he needs to be adored on the pitch as well as protected off of it.

    That said, I would love to see City go mad and replace him with Zlatan. What I’d give to see the Swedish samurai in the Prem.

  4. Nuno says:

    @jojo, Mourinho and Mancini in the same sentence can only be valid if you’re trying to suggest the best and the worst coaches in big clubs, Mancini is a mediocre coach, at best…

  5. jojo says:

    @ nuno

    I don’t think he’s that bad of a coach to be honest. Had to fit in a shitload of new players with big egos, and the results have been quite well. (I really dislike his defensive style though.)

    But I was referring more to the ‘special father-son connection’ between the two that was also stated in the article. I agree with Chris that other managers wouldn’t be half as patient with Balotelli, understandably.

  6. Nuno says:

    The egos are his fault. When Mourinho went to Chelsea he bought Cech, Essien, Drogba who were promising but still mostly unknown at the time. Mancini got the money he wanted, bought every single player available with little criteria (just so that other teams don’t have them) and now complains about United getting van Persie (a coach that has Aguero, Tevez and Dzeko at his disposal can’t complain about offense).
    And the “quite well” isn’t valid in Europe. Sure he got the worst Group in the Champions League, but he still should have won at least one of the games against Ajax.
    Still, if City can flog Balotelli for £20 million, they should sell him, but I honestly don’t see the deal going through. Italian clubs aren’t really known for big spending, Milan isn’t that well and Berlusconi even said Balotelli is a “rotten apple” a few weeks ago.

  7. jojo says:

    it’s official now… milan what have you done?

  8. Mr Sensible says:

    YES.

    I don’t really understand the sympathy a lot of people seem to have for Balotelli, he’s a complete fucking retard who earns around half a million pounds a month, HALF A FUCKING MILLION!!!

    I know how much he earns isn’t his problem but the guy is a complete douche. He has absolutely no care for anybody other than himself, the fact that there are people like Balotelli that exist in the world makes me incredibly depressed. What other job in the world pays people such disgusting amounts of money when he can’t even do a very good job, he’s scored 1 league goal all season.

  9. Moogle says:

    @Nuno sorry mate, but Cech was signed by Ranieri, not Mourinho.

  10. jeanne says:

    Mourinho stayed for max 2 years. So no you can t compare the job of mancini and Mourinho. Mancini is finding a way to hold on to the egos ( who, in my opinion are “wrongly” called egos — to be honest…only clear egos in City is nasri and balotelli).
    Mourinho is the better coach on record, but mancini can and must be given credit for his work.

    And balotelli situation was inevitable at this point. I only feel sorry for is mancin, he did absolutely everything to help him.
    he was zoo close.Now lets see how milan hold him. TO be honest i think he ll do well. He just gotta beat el Shawary ( dnt know how to spell)

  11. Nuno says:

    Mourinho stayed for 3 years. 1st in 04/05 and 05/06, 2nd in 06/07 and he was basically sacked for not having success in the Champions League, but as far as I remember he didn’t have the budget Mancini have in City.
    Mancini had to deal with some bad situations (like Tevez) but the ‘egos’ part is the fact that almost every player went there only for the money and they all want to earn more than half a million pounds a month and there are unbalances in their salary sheet (the best players are not necessarily earning more, like I believe was the case with Kompany).

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