Liverpool 0 Hull City 0
LIVERPOOL // For much of his career, Mario Balotelli has been a highlights player – he produces magical moments, rather than great performances.
Yesterday, the Italian was the antithesis of a highlights player.
Long after all other incidents in a stalemate are forgotten, one will be replayed. It came in the 94th minute.
Philippe Coutinho crossed. Balotelli, six yards out, had one chance to win the game, one opportunity to deliver three points and transform the narrative that he and Liverpool are a mismatch, a marriage destined for a swift and acrimonious divorce, possibly as soon as January.
This was a miss, in every sense. He missed the ball completely. That is Balotelli the failure, the £16 million (Dh95.4m) flop, the man who has been an inverse alchemist in his brief Liverpool career. He has transformed gold into base metal.
Yet his display as a whole lent itself to different conclusions.
“I thought he was their best player,” said Hull City manager Steve Bruce. Indeed, it was a sentiment he believed so much he said it three times.
Dogged and determined, Balotelli worked. He ran channels, found teammates, did the hard yards, delivered the graft. But, when the chance came, his craft deserted him.
His tally stands at a solitary goal in his past 23 Premier League games, and it did not come in Liverpool colours. He is both a symptom of their problems and a smokescreen.
It is simplistic to say they have declined simply because Balotelli has replaced Luis Suarez.
Not when Daniel Sturridge is injured, when Liverpool’s passing is not as sharp or as precise as it was last season. Not when the goals have dried up at Anfield and a £117m makeover has produced a less attractive team.
Liverpool huff and puff where they used to race and outpace. They do not lack effort, but incision.
August’s 3-0 win at Tottenham was the lone occasion when they have replicated last season’s scintillating form. They do not slice opponents apart any more.
They began brightly, as they often do, failed to score in the first 20 minutes, as tends to be the case, and barely threatened for the next 40, which is also a recurring theme.
Steven Gerrard drove them on in the final half-hour and Coutinho produced a second bright cameo in as many league games, suggesting he should start ahead of Adam Lallana.
Yet their desperation was apparent when Jordan Henderson was booked for diving, their impotence in open play evident when Gerrard’s set pieces produced their best chances.
Dejan Lovren met the captain’s corner with a towering header that Ahmed Elmohamady cleared off the line.
There was no first Liverpool goal for the Croatian, no strike to compensate for the difficulties he has had in defence since his £20m move from Southampton.
At least the centre-back could count a clean sheet as consolation. So could Hull, in particular a man who has been as anonymous as Balotelli seems ubiquitous.
Eldin Jakupovic is their third-choice goalkeeper, a player only promoted because Allan McGregor and Steve Harper are injured.
Truth be told, he hardly had to excel for much of the match. There were saves from Balotelli and Coutinho but, with his defence performing so admirably, Hull held out for a deserved draw. They can savour both a brief highlights package and the memories of 90 minutes of defiance.
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