There was something on the other side of the dressing room at Melwood which caught Mario Balotelli’s eye.
When the Italian striker asked what a team-mate was holding, he was informed it was the new iPhone 6. Balotelli, not yet in possession of Apple’s latest smartphone, was visibly irked according to observers.
Moments later he trooped out on to the training field to take part in the warm-up but within minutes he pulled up complaining of discomfort in his hamstring. Staff sent him straight back inside to be checked out by the medics.
When the Liverpool squad returned to the dressing room at the end of the session 90 minutes later, they were surprised by what greeted them.
There was a beaming Balotelli sat in the corner, with a new iPhone 6 in his hand and a few spares boxed up next to him. One of his minions had been hastily dispatched to do some shopping. The pain in his hamstring had miraculously eased.
It’s one of countless anecdotes which explain why Liverpool were so desperate to get Balotelli out of the door this summer.
Balotelli will take his place alongside Aquilani and Carroll in list of Kop flops
From top left, Alberto Aquilani, El Hadji Diouf, Mario Balotelli and Andy Carroll
Twelve months after paying AC Milan £16million for his services, the Reds agreed to send him back to the Serie A outfit on a season-long loan. There is no loan fee and they will still have to pay a hefty chunk of his £90,000 per week wages.
There is also no commitment on Milan’s part to make the move permanent but there is little prospect of Balotelli ever pulling on a Liverpool shirt again. His place alongside the likes of El Hadji Diouf, Alberto Aquilani and Andy Carroll in the list of expensive Kop flops is secure.
Brendan Rodgers’ patience with Balotelli, who had been banished to train away from the first-team squad since July, had long since evaporated, All the promises the 25-year-old made last summer about knuckling down and vowing to fulfil his potential proved to be so empty.
A minority of supporters will claim that Balotelli never got a fair crack of the whip. They will point to the fact that of his 28 appearances last season, he only started on 14 occasions. They will argue that Daniel Sturridge’s injury woes denied Balotelli the strike partner he would have hit it off with. They will say he was made a scapegoat for Liverpool’s troubles during a campaign of glaring under-achievement.
Striker only has himself to blame for exit after one season at Anfield
Getty Images
Joe Allen competes with Mario Balotelli and Raheem Sterling during a training session
But the reality is that Balotelli only has himself to blame for failing at Liverpool. He never came close to meeting the levels of professionalism and commitment demanded of any club employee.
Aside from his half-hearted attitude during training sessions at Melwood, when they were over he was inevitably the first out of the door.
Where others stayed behind to do extra work on the field, a gym session, video analysis or just to have lunch together, Balotelli would walk away at the earliest opportunity,
It would be wrong to say he was unpopular in the squad. Amid the stresses and strains of top-flight football, at times he put a smile on his team-mates’ faces with his antics. He was the self-appointed court jester.
They couldn’t quite believe his front when they found him smoking inside the grounds of Melwood. During a team bonding exercise he claimed not to know who Joe Allen was - despite having shared a dressing room with the Wales international for months.
Displays of Petulance angered Liverpool's staff
At times he drove the staff spare.
Rodgers was angered by the size of the entourage that Balotelli welcomed into the team hotel the night before Liverpool’s Champions League clash with Basel last October. They stayed until the early hours of the morning.
The manager’s mood didn’t improve after that defeat when Balotelli, who hadn’t once touched the ball inside the Basel penalty box in 90 minutes, ignored his request to go and clap the away fans.
Liverpool had to put a stop to all the hangers-on who would wander around Melwood during training after arriving with the former Manchester City frontman.
After making a short cameo in January’s FA Cup win at AFC Wimbledon, Balotelli shrugged off the attentions of fitness coach Ryland Morgans and refused to do the usual shuttle runs requested of him during the warm-down as he headed for the tunnel.
They were the kind of displays of petulance which can be quickly forgiven if a player is regularly producing the goods on the field. But with Balotelli that was never the case.
He was never right at Anfield
John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
There's just something not so right...
Someone with a sense of humour in the Reds’ commercial department used an image of Balotelli on the front cover of the club’s spring/summer clothing range catalogue entitled ‘Made for Liverpool’.
But at no point over the past 12 months did that statement ever ring true. The alarm bells were ringing from the moment it became clear last August that Balotelli was Anfield-bound.
It was a panic buy at the end of a summer when Liverpool had made a hash of replacing Luis Suarez. Initially, Rodgers didn’t want Balotelli but after the club failed to land the likes of Alexis Sanchez or Wilfried Bony, he was faced with an unenviable choice.
With deadline day on the horizon, he had to take either Balotelli or the decrepit Samuel Eto’o. Rodgers was wary of the Italian’s chequered past but went for what he described as a “calculated gamble”.
Financially, the club’s transfer committee thought the deal was a no-brainer for a player who had netted 30 goals in 54 games since returning to his homeland from Manchester City. AC Milan had initially been touting him around Europe for £25million.
The belief was that at £16million it was virtually risk free. If it didn’t work out Liverpool would easily find someone willing to give them their money back.
They even got Balotelli to agree to a heavily reduced basic salary and put a series of performance and behaviour related clauses in his contract, designed to provide him with the incentives required to work hard and keep his nose clean.
Rodgers was banging his head against a brick wall
Mancini and Mourinho both failed with Balotelli, Rodgers succeeded with Suarez and Sturridge... Would it work?
A year on Liverpool would have happily accepted half what they paid for Balotelli - but there were absolutely no takers.
Having worked wonders with the likes of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, Rodgers genuinely thought he could succeed where Roberto Mancini and Jose Mourinho had previously failed and change Balotelli. But he soon found that he was banging his head against a brick wall.
Balotelli was told he needed to adjust his game in order to succeed at Liverpool. He couldn’t simply demand the ball into his feet, he had to be more mobile. Rodgers was wasting his breath.
From the moment hundreds packed outside Melwood to welcome him to the club, supporters embraced him. ‘Mario magnifico’, sang the Kop. They wanted him to succeed.
There was room for a new icon post-Suarez but Balotelli never looked like filling that void. There were goals against Ludogorets, Swansea, Spurs and Besiktas but precious little else to justify all the fanfare around him.
Now Milan have taken him back amid talk of Balotelli vowing to “focus on his football” and agreeing to curb his antics by signing up to a strict code of conduct.
We’ve heard it all before.
Sorrento, the Italian restaurant in Formby, will certainly miss Balotelli but few others will mourn his exit. He was damaging for the team ethic and unity Rodgers prides himself on.
It was an expensive gamble that never looked like paying off. Balotelli will never change his ways.
It will be a relief to Rodgers that he’s now someone else’s problem
