is 'super' mario balotelli, owner of ipad, actually any good as a footballer?

you think inzaghi is/was rubbish?

come on now

no option for exceptionally gifted but actually shit

He was great in the FA Cup Final. But yeah, we need 'exceptionally gifted but actually shit/an idiot'. Still, that worked out alright for Adel Taarabt over the last couple of years.

Next few years of Balotelli's career = useless Carling Cup appearances -> loan period at Fehnerbache -> signs for Blackburn -> signs for newly-promoted West Ham -> suddenly gets really good -> signs for Chelsea for £20m.

taraabt has been playing in the lower divisions in the uk after an extended period as a reserve at spurs. for a guy of that talent i don't know if that's what i'd ca'' working out.

next few months will decide tarbs' fate for good imo; general feeling is we've rather cut the cord, so it's up to him now.

leaving aside the silly argument about whether pippo was good or not i don't understand the hypothetical analogy anyway - pippo even if supposedly limited was ultraeffective, while mario is the diametric opposite.

seems obv that if nothing changes mario will end up at milan sooner or later. if he can keep his nose clean enough there he can ride along with the odd cameo and pick up some trophies for a few years. if not, he'll be at all sorts of different clubs every year or two and slowly dwindle away, maybe with a small comeback at some point. matt's anelka route basically.

haven't seen too much that suggests he's as good as anelka tbph

maybe the real talking point of the thread though is whether anyone else in the world thought of the slippery old goalweasel as handsome. can't say it ever struck me.

he really is extremely talented, more or less complete cuz he's big, pretty fast and technically excellent, and he reads the game pretty well

i think he is also actually eccentric/troubled rathered than just an obnoxious waster so will be happy if he does sort himself out, and suspect like cassano it may well take a spell at a midtable/provincial italian team to achieve that

rathered

really haven't seen enough of this guy tbh

http://img.skysports.com/07/09/218x298/Inzaghi_576900.jpg

come on, how is this not a handsome man?

idk, wouldnt beat my offside trap. maybe he's just not my type.

others feel free to weigh in on this croosh debate.

wouldnt beat my offside trap LOL

balo is a great player. came off the bench last night and looked really sharp and dangerous. classy, good control, not afraid to take a man on, decent link-up play and shooting ability. also comedy genius.

Italian mafia investigators to approach Mario Balotelli

you think inzaghi is/was rubbish?
― r|t|c, Wednesday, 7 September 2011 06:49 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

never did see this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rXHFrgXrgk

effective but rubbish imo

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Have we discussed l'affaire tevez

Not so much actually. I did wonder whether it was worth a 'defend the indefensible' but it's just not surprising enough possibly - if Beckham tells Capello to piss off maybe there'll be more to talk about (really had to work to think of someone unlikely to be a dick there)

soccer am just showed a highlights reel of his best bits.

i'm not sure how accurate it was but y'know, just doesn't justify anything

inzaghi fronting remains some shameful shit

u just watched soccer am

i've got limited options atm

he's a fuckin clown, a silly cunt, he's not worth a tenth his wage nor a fifth his transfer fee, he's performed twice in a city shirt and tbh we'll never know if he's potentially as good as is tiresomely claimed or if the very thought of that is scaring him away from bothering his arse.

Fuckin myth, and far more annoying than other myths like idk thudd or w/e.

i mean he's, output wise, not hugely above yr jason roberts model. WTF is that even about? Fuck off.

He did well last season before Mancini dropped him, but he's definitely gone backwards in a big way this year.

Also he's taking City to court, hilariously. How do they manage to alienate players with such regularity?

thread is just the old what use is talent with shitty application chestnut, answer not much, case closed

seems obv now at least that whatever good he'll do in his career it won't be at city

xp they hire cunts

the best thing is that he'll act the silly arse in every facet of life and football except for penalties whereupon he momentarily becomes the ice coldest professional assassin. it's like someone put a chip in his brain

anelka indeed

this is crazy

Intriguing opportunities for brand alignment between Mr Why-Always-Me? and Liverpool FC.

xp so crazy it might just work imo

Jonathan Wilson ‏@jonawils 29m
Balotelli to Liverpool feels like when Harold came back to Neighbours: glad to see him, but you wonder if the narrative can take the strain.

Bad guy narrative void, faint whiff of desperation, likely to underwhelm. If anything it's more like Dirty Den returning to Eastenders.

'ullo ma... rio

Replacing one lunatic with another

Im excited all the same

where have the ilf lfc contingent got to anyway

our salts of the earth away for august or summink

stoked for the madness tbh

Ronan on an ilx break by the looks. I haven't seen Ismael post something in a while either.

Replacing one lunatic with another

― everyday sheeple (Michael B), Thursday, August 21, 2014 7:01 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see maybe i've totally misunderstood things but i was under the impression that suarez was only a lunatic on the pitch and when he got a lil overstimulated; everything i've heard would suggest that off the pitch, on like an interpersonal level w/teammates and such, he was regarded as p cuddly and easy-going

whereas as mario is just a lunatic all around

Lower profile Red still knocking around here. I'm quite excited, just hoping him and Studge get on.

yeah that's crucial

it seems like he's a good bet for the price (vs falcao or w/e), esp if lfc off-loads borini

they can play their grime tribute songs at each other

haha i didn't know such a thing existed until like 30mins ago when i went looking for mario highlight reels

def having a pang about him at 17m tbf

lol

bump

did u make this too

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B0USMgIIMAIjsnV.jpg:large

c'mon man, I specifically bumped this with you in mind. I want an honest assessment

he really is extremely talented, more or less complete cuz he's big, pretty fast and technically excellent, and he reads the game pretty well

i think he is also actually eccentric/troubled rathered than just an obnoxious waster so will be happy if he does sort himself out, and suspect like cassano it may well take a spell at a midtable/provincial italian team to achieve that

― diouf est le papa du foot galsen merde lè haters (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 7 September 2011 15:36 (3 years ago)

that's where he's heading alright

that appears a little bit of a falese opposition, he is both eccentric/troubled and an obnoxious waster

the move to liverpool does not make a lot of sense in football terms rather than in mino raiola terms

“I always said it was about availability and affordability of players,” said Rodgers, who considered the merits of Samuel Eto’o before the 33-year-old’s move to Everton. “Mario was the one right at the very end who was available for that. I said when he came in that it was a calculated risk and it’s something I have to work on to try to make it work for the team.

“We had attempts for other strikers that didn’t materialise for one reason or another so it left us right at the end of the window with a decision on whether just to go with what we had, when experience told us we were too light, or take a calculated risk on a player who has quality and then could we get it out of him consistently?

this sort of blame shifting is typical rodgers but doing it pre-emptively seems both needlessly defensive and liable to alienate a surly and readily alienable player

maybe with sturridge back there will be enough movement around him that it will work but there is a sort of doomed feel to it

not watched liverpool this season but all of the sentient observers say gerrard and his pre-eminence is at least as much of a problem, rodgers the other week said something about the number of opposition player targetting him showing what a great player he must be

either that or they watched the chelsea game last season

Targetting Gerrard? Why bother?

Rodgers has handled the whole thing very strangely. Calling it his "last chance" as soon as he signed etc.

I believe there's a conspiracy theory in certain sections of the Liverpool support about players getting bought against his wishes but I think that's being generous to a guy who's fairly consistently shown he has no idea what he's doing in the transfer market

doesn't seem to have any idea what he is doing in terms of squad building but he is good at improvising and a talented coach (sterling shows that)

all of that money spent without having a single central midfielder who isn't a curate's egg

Yeah my first reaction upon reading that Rodgers quote was "wtf is he doing?" It doesn't even work as a Redknapp-esque humiliation as motivational tactic.

Persisting with Gerrard as his main holding midfielder despite his manifest failings in that department, and not adequately reinforcing the position, is probably his single most foolish move. This Liverpool team will click eventually, despite that.

Calling it his "last chance" as soon as he signed etc.

This was ludicrous, what age is Balotelli? 23? 24?

I think that has to be amended to talented offensive coach at this point

most Liverpool fans seem to think their defensive problems are largely an organisational issue

I think he said "last chance at a big club"

maybe defensive in terms of the defence itself but when liverpool were at their best they had the best pressing game in england, which is the defensive foundation of all of the great sides of recent times more than having great defenders

there's an argument there about whether there are just fewer first rate defender than in the nesta/thuram/ayala/etc generation or whether general tactical shifts and liberal offsides have shifted the balance and made it harder to look good

none of liverpool's central defenders look very good as individuals and they all look like rash, easily confused and unreliable types without have the speed, technique, instincts or recovery ability of similar sort of players like ramos or koscielny

none of their fullbacks looks like a sturdy physical player either except for jose enrique who is unfavoured; if you play a tiny technical fullback on one side you should probably have an ivanovic type on the other flank

that is to say, in the absence of a defensive midfield, everton last season shifted both fbs very high but they had two extremely solid defensive midfielders

some more demagogic evasion from rodgers as balotelli breaks one of those epl golden rules that they might get away with over there but not here alongside such eternal disgraces as gesturing for a booking for an opposition player

'It's the first I've heard of Balotelli swapping shirts at half-time but I am not happy about it. It's not something I stand for.

'It tends to happen in other countries but if it has happened here then I will deal with it.

'We had a problem with that last season and I had to deal with it then so I will again if necessary.

neither mourinho's hardman shtick nor mancini's emotionally volatile filial bonding entirely worked with balotelli but this 'i didn't particularly want him and he is on his last warning' ostracism is almost certain to fail, taking him off at half time in a game that was already lost

“Longer term we will see how that works out for him but he is trying hard on the training field to improve his opportunities to score goals.

“As long as he is doing his best that is all I can ask as a coach: whether that best is going to be good enough that remains to be seen - but that is the same for every player not just Mario.”

this is such a shitty way to talk about a player bought for £16m two months ago, no matter how poorly he has played, that it lends credence to the suggestion that balotelli was bought for him without his full approval and he is now involved in a shitfight with the owners about getting control over transfer policy (cf rafael benitez circa 2008)

It's pretty much the way that incoming managers talk about underperforming players signed under a predecessor. But I suspect he's also trying to appease fans who have seen the Premiership's most terrifying forward line pretty much evaporate over the course of the summer. Once Sturridge comes back I can't see him getting many games, with Rodgers trolling him further by regularly throwing on Rickie Lambert as a late sub.

lol
Police are investigating a claim that Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli "threatened" a woman who was taking pictures of his Ferrari.

(from bbc site)

ppffft they'd do well to prove any threat given his aim lately

Football365.com, or simply F365, is a website which is operated by 365 Media Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of BSkyB, from its base in Leeds.

The website primarily covers the Premier League, as well as other European leagues and cups. It takes an informal and humorous approach to dealing with the latest football news and often includes running jokes about individuals connected with the sport.

Aldridge, who scored 50 goals in 83 games for Liverpool in the late 1980s, believes Lambert offers a touch of the unexpected – and suggests the former non-league player will bring the best out of those around him.

"Up front, I'd start with Rickie" Aldridge says. "I know he's not had much game time, but they won't expect him to play, and he can hold the ball up.

"I'd have Sterling and Lallana out wide and use Lambert to get them into the game. Lambert knows what it's all about."

can't help but remember how Rodgers sounded talking about signing a player he actually wanted

On Monday Rodgers had stated that he was close to making an "exciting" signing.

"We hope to complete a deal this week which will be a real exciting one for the club," he said.

"He will be terrific, I'm sure. And the supporters will absolutely love him.

he could yet prove useful once the £4m of decorative realness is sent out to pasture alongside jody morris and former incarnations of gunnersaurus

“He’s technically strong, he’s a good finisher with both feet, he can play central or on the sides in a 4-3-3 up front, he’s quick, and he’s tactically very good.

“He is arguably the best physical player I’ve worked with in terms of his pace, power and fitness.

“Mentally, he’s very strong. We’ve got a player who is on the up and someone who I think Liverpool will benefit from.”

just kidding he's talking about Borini again

Two on his debut for Nice. I'd be surprised if he doesn't get 25 this season.

Two more tonight vs Monaco. Am revising my season tally estimate to 60.

saw some of this after after the bayern game tedious. nice demolished monaco 4-0. hadn't realised that lucien favre was the manager until now!! loved his work at gladbach until the cataclysmic start to last season, wouldn't have pegged him as a mario friendly boss tbh

its almost as if he's playing in one of the weaker leagues in europe

As any Spurs fan will tell you, Monaco aren't exactly pushovers.

I won't. We killed them except for the goals

score and sent off today (for a nothing second yellow tbf)

https://streamable.com/hedl