Mario Balotelli [On the Road to Ballon d'or)

[chadrtc]

apparently bony had a 19m release clause in the summer. he could have been banging them in for us all year.

ah, but he doesnt suit our style. never mind, lets move on.

hold up, we need a striker and as we're not in london we cant get any of our prefered targets.

we defo wont be getting mario balotelli cos he's the last thing the manager wants.

quick, lets get balotelli. he's not what we want but he'll be better than no one.

wtf have we gone and done. sack the committee.

To be fair, Bony was a potential signing that just about everyone on here was going off about us signing without really having seen him play a great deal. He would've been a great signing then and still would now... but there's no chance of it happening now. We missed the boat on that one.

[RedReet]

Bony scores goals, great hold play, quick and powerful & a beast in the air.

That oul chestnut 'he doesn't suit our style of play' was knocking around here a lot. We would be close to City & Chelsea if we had Bony this season instead of Balotelli.

TBF Dan, you came out with that 'oul chestnut' yourself. Just because Balotelli has been a complete disaster, doesn't mean Bony would have been any better suited than some feared.

To be fair, Bony was a potential signing that just about everyone on here was going off about us signing without really having seen him play a great deal. He would've been a great signing then and still would now... but there's no chance of it happening now. We missed the boat on that one.

I don't think I commented in the summer, but still not convinced for big money, he would have been the right signing for us. We'd no doubt be better off if we had of signed him, but personally I thought Remy was a better fit and was disappointed when that broke down.

[Gray]

Bony will barely get a kick at city. He'll be at Villa/Everton in a year.

[DannyMan2006]

Would have done better than Mario has so far, but so would a load of others.

[baitman]

Bony will barely get a kick at city...

we will get him in some p/x deal for sterling

[danperkins]

TBF Dan, you came out with that 'oul chestnut' yourself. Just because Balotelli has been a complete disaster, doesn't mean Bony would have been any better suited than some feared.

.

To be fair I said that in the summer when I thought we were going to start this season playing a certain type of counter attacking free flowing system....we all did. So everyone was being very specific about the type of footballer they would like to see at LFC and who would fit our style of play last season.

This season though we set up different & that system kind of went out the window. We needed a goalscorer.. we brought in Lambert & Balotelli. Neither player suited the system we thought we were going to play & neither has ever been prolific, Rodgers clearly had a different system in mind bringing these types of players in.

Bony isn't a pretty footballer but he is effective & scores goals. All hindsight of course but if you had asked me even back in the summer of a choice between Balotelli, Lambert or Bony... I know which one I would have said.

Irrelevant now anyways

[RedReet]

To be fair I said that in the summer when I thought we were going to start this season playing a certain type of counter attacking free flowing system....we all did. So everyone was being very specific about the type of footballer they would like to see at LFC and who would fit our style of play last season.

This season though we set up different & that system kind of went out the window. We needed a goalscorer.. we brought in Lambert & Balotelli. Neither player suited the system we thought we were going to play & neither has ever been prolific, Rodgers clearly had a different system in mind bringing these types of players in.

Bony isn't a pretty footballer but he is effective & scores goals. All hindsight of course but if you had asked me even back in the summer of a choice between Balotelli, Lambert or Bony... I know which one I would have said.

Irrelevant now anyways

Well I think that was the plan which is why we bought players like Lallana, Marko, Moreno and were linked with Sanchez/Remy, but obviously we didn't get the striker to suit this system. That, coupled with the injury to Sturridge has forced us to change our system, which means we probably could have got a decent return from Bony, but was not something we had planned for in the summer, therefore understandable why we didn't try and get him then.

Although hindsight has proven it to be a mistake, I can still understand why Rodgers chose Balotelli/Lambert over the likes of Bony. Mario was a bit of a panic buy and not really suited to our system, but he was available at what seemed a reduced price and for that price Rodgers probably thought it was worth the risk in the hope that he could change his style to suit our play, mush like he had such success with Sturridge. To blow close to £30m on Bony when he wasn't the type of forward we were looking at, would have been hard to justify, especially when we had already at this stage spent so much on players we were hoping would be comfortable with our style of football last year.

I don't deny Bony is a good footballer, I tipped him to score most games during world cup and am not surprised to see him have a good season again this year. In saying that, given those 3 options in the summer, I probably would have went for Lambert.

[The Birdman]

Would have done better than Mario has so far, but so would a load of others.

Why would Bony have done better?

How many have actually watched Swansea play? Bony doesn't press high, doesn't shut the ball down, doesn't work hard without the ball and doesn't run in behind to stretch defences.
He drops deep to receive leaving all the space behind him for the Swansea wingers to make out to in runs or he links with Sigurdsson.
He also scores goals from crosses.

Sounds exactly like we have in Lambert and Balotelli in style and neither of those suit us because we don't play that way.
City have Dzeko who is similar, Chelsea Drogba, Arsenal Giroud so Bony would do well for those.

He wouldn't do well for us because of how we play, £25-30m and 100k a week???
At least Dick Turpin wore a mask.

[RedReet]

del

[Norbs]

boy

[~LFCHistory~]

If we'd bought Bony we'd have been reduced to pumping crosses in and playing long balls from the back. Awful.

We always perform best when we have fast, clever attackers pressing the opposition and running in behind defences, Bony would not suit that style of play at all.

[Gazzla]

I'm convinced that when Sturridge is back and we are playing with 2 up top we will see a different player in Balotelli, he looks far more dangerous in the 10 or 15 minutes he's on the pitch than Lambert or Borini have done all season.

Not excusing some of his performances but he's nowhere near as bad as lambert has been and he really has suffered some horrible luck in front of goal, poor ******* can't catch a break

[danperkins]

To be fair he can't get much worse, but yeah think the general consensus seems he'll be better in a pairing. Personally I think we'll play Sturridge up top on his own once he's fully fit (if that ever happens).

[BigChief]

To be fair he can't get much worse, but yeah think the general consensus seems he'll be better in a pairing. Personally I think we'll play Sturridge up top on his own once he's fully fit (if that ever happens).

Yep, Balotelli better make the most of any playing time he's getting now. Even if we played two up front it would be Origi and Sturridge or Sterling and Sturridge.

[Scratch]

Or a front 3, with Balotelli central and and two from Sterling, Origi and Sturridge flanking. Midfield of Henderson or Lucas central, then two from lallana, Markovic and Coutinho...back to a 4-3-3? Make the opposition worry about us for a change.