Liverpool’s 32 Best Signings Under Brendan Rodgers

32. Mario Balotelli/£16m/AC Milan/Aug 2013

It had to be him, didn’t it? Why always Mario?

It’s unconfirmed whether that horrid attempt at facial hair had anything to do with his failures.

This list of mostly duds begins with the biggest disappointment of them all, Mario Balotelli.

To be completely honest, I was elated the day Liverpool signed him. Having yet to come off the high of Liverpool finishing second in the league with a roster that should have been 6th, I convinced myself the team would be alright without Luis Suarez and I was certain Brendan Rodgers was the best young manager in the world.

At that point in time my opinion was that of it being more likely to imagine Liverpool would lose their manager to Barcelona than a scenario in which they’d fire him.

Balotelli had all the tools to be a world class striker. He hadn’t unlocked his brain just yet, but it felt like his last big chance and he knew it. He said all the right things in interviews. It was then or never.

So it was never.

He made 16 appearances in the league, scoring one goal. That solitary goal came against Tottenham in the 83rd minute to give the Reds a 3-2 win. This winning goal gave Liverpool fans some hope that he wasn’t going to be an utter flop. False, false hope.

A £16million price tag (£1million per league appearance) and an albatross that Liverpool will struggle to offload after surgery rules him out of action at AC Milan until February toboggans him to the bottom of this list.

I root for the fella, I really do. I hope he figures it out one day.

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