Brendan Rodgers will give Mario Balotelli another two months to prove himself at Liverpool but all the indications are that contingencies are already being drawn up as the manager’s frustration with the striker builds to critical levels.
As tends to be the way with players like Balotelli, with poor form comes other issues.
This week has not just been about a disappointing performance against Real Madrid and a half-time substitution, it has also been about his half-time shirt-swap and stories that police are investigating whether Balotelli threatened a woman taking photographs of his Ferrari.
This is a modern footballing tale, a story as much about celebrity and media coverage as it is about sport.
Balotelli did not play well on Wednesday but, for all his head-down running and occasional passes to imaginary teammates, he was not terrible.
He was not the reason Liverpool lost. The far bigger issue was the failure of Steven Gerrard and Jordan Henderson to get tight enough to Toni Kroos and Liverpool’s continuing inability to defend set pieces.
Yet the headlines were all about Balotelli and the shirt-swap, something that has been painted in some quarters as a deflection technique by Rodgers.
In fact, Rodgers claimed not to know it had happened when he was asked and stated simply that he was against the practice and would speak to Balotelli about it.
It was a measured, proportionate response. There is something slightly distasteful about players exchanging shirts at half-time, the premature performance of the post-match gesture of goodwill somehow undermining the second half.
At the same time, it is an utterly trivial issue and, in this case, it should be noted that it was Pepe who approached Balotelli.
So in a game in which Liverpool’s defence was again found wanting, Balotelli became the lightning rod for discontent.
He should not be exempt from criticism, but he is low-hanging fruit. It is easy to attack him, in part because his demeanour, his apparent solipsism, the thing that makes him a charming eccentric when things are going well, makes him insufferable when they are not.
“We brought in the player to give him a chance and we will continue to do that,” Rodgers said. “He is working hard to try to fit into the team ethos here but only time will tell. We will see come January what the team needs.”
That Balotelli is “working hard” is a trope to which Rodgers returns again and again, almost as though he is hoping if he says it often enough it will become true, or at least that it will head off criticism from those aggravated by his diffident on-pitch manner. Yet Rodgers is losing patience.
The first time Leroy Fer struck the bar during the fortuitous win over Queens Park Rangers on Sunday, Balotelli was bent over on the halfway line, clutching his ear after a challenge from Richard Dunne.
Rodgers berated him from the touchline, clearly feeling Balotelli was not so badly hurt that he could not have tracked back and helped shut down the attack.
Two minutes into Wednesday’s game, Marcelo was dispossessed and the ball came to Balotelli. The stage was clear for the sort of rapid transition that was so characteristic of Liverpool last season, but Balotelli, with Raheem Sterling in support to his left, stuttered with his head down, allowing the full-back to recover.
Rodgers rocked back on his heels and shook his head. The days when he cheerily spoke of how he had persuaded Balotelli to defend corners seem a long time ago.
Perhaps it will be different when Daniel Sturridge returns to fitness and to the attack. Or perhaps Liverpool will find a way of playing that does not expose the myriad ways in which Balotelli is not Luis Suarez.
But the feeling always was that if Balotelli were going to be a success, he needed to get off to a rapid start. In the past, once confidence has dipped and he has been criticised, he has tended to sulk.
Maybe he has matured and will emerge stronger from this, but already this feels as though the endgame of his time at Liverpool is being reached. His next opportunity to show otherwise comes at Anfield today against Hull City.
The comparison with Cristiano Ronaldo on Wednesday felt almost cruel.
They are the players who have had the most shots in Europe’s top five leagues this season, but where Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 15 league goals for Madrid, Balotelli has yet to get off the mark domestically for his new employers..
Ronaldo has similarly peacockish tendencies but where he has expended every possible drip of energy to be the best he can possibly be, Balotelli remains a talent disaffected and unfulfilled.
sports@thenational.ae
