Liverpool: Brendan Rodgers Is Taking His Tough Love with Mario Balotelli Too Far

During Brendan Rodgers’ press conference prior to the fixture against Tottenham Hotspur in August, he was insistent Liverpool would not become the Mario Balotelli show.

“I won’t be talking about [Mario] Balotelli every week, I’ll tell you that now,” he firmly told reporters, as per The Guardian. “The team is the most important thing here, it won’t turn into the Balotelli show.”

His side reflected his demands with a dominant 3-0 away win, which remains Liverpool’s best performance so far this season by some distance.

Fast-forward five weeks, however, and following yet another sub-par team performance in the damaging 1-0 defeat at Basel in the Champions League, Rodgers finds himself talking about Balotelli multiple times a week.

And not for the right reasons.

During his post-match interview with Sky Sports (embedded below), Rodgers was quick to defend Raheem Sterling as a “great talent” when asked if the 19-year-old was suffering from burn-out.

Asked to review Balotelli’s performance, however, he merely replied: “He’s working hard, but he needs to do more.”

The contrast could not be clearer.

It is unusual from a manager whose greatest strength is arguably his man-management. Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard reflected this in March, rating the Northern Irishman’s “one-on-one management [as] the best I’ve known,” as per the BBC.

Rodgers will clearly be working feverishly behind the scenes to improve Balotelli’s performances.

But, as ever, unfortunately we can only judge what occurs in the public eye.

One of many modern coaches closely influenced by Jose Mourinho, Rodgers understands the importance of his briefings to the press.

Yet currently—without directly comparing the two in any other way—the Liverpool boss seems to be replicating one of Roy Hodgson’s many, major errors during his perilous stint with the club; he is being too open, too honest.

Of course, unlike Hodgson much of the time, there is often method to it: His tactic to maximise the Italian’s undoubted potential appears to be some old-fashioned tough love.

He will be wary that both Roberto Mancini and Cesare Prandelli, at Manchester City and Italy, respectively, over-indulged the forward to the detriment of the team towards the end of their reigns.

Moreover, Rodgers has every right to demand more goals and more creativity from a £16m striker with only one goal and one assist in his opening seven games.

And he has rightly recognised that Balotelli is working hard. Against Everton in particular, the 24-year-old led the line admirably, although he should have put the match out of sight when denied by Tim Howard at 1-0, strengthening Rodgers’ concerns over his goalscoring.

But it is questionable whether the strong-armed “he must behave” rhetoric from day one was necessary; whether nonsensical comments over him having never previously defended at corners, while entertaining to us as the public, help shift general opinion of him as lazy.

Most worryingly, however, is his constant labelling of the Italian as a “calculated risk,” which is only adding to the question marks over signing him as Luis Suarez’s main replacement.

Indeed, his comments in his pre-match press conference for Saturday’s fixture against West Bromwich Albion, as quoted in The Guardian, over the matter were particularly alarming: 

"

I always said it was about availability and affordability of players. Mario was the one right at the very end who was available. I said when he came in it was a calculated risk and it’s something I have to work on to try to make it work for the team.

"

It all paints a picture of Balotelli as a last resort.

Whether Rodgers feels that way or not, he surely shouldn’t be openly expressing it.

At a time when his side are clearly suffering from a crisis in confidence, evident by the soft goals conceded and a lack of quality end product, such comments are not likely to help.

It should be noted that Rodgers has criticised players at Liverpool before: Jordan Henderson said in an interview with the Mirror's David Maddock that Rodgers told him he needed to improve his tactical awareness upon the Northern Irishman's arrival at the club. Stewart Downing and Jose Enrique received the Northern Irishman’s wrath early in Rodgers' tenure too, with the duo and Henderson improving in the second half of the 2012-13 campaign.

But they were not his signings.

A more apt and recent comparison is probably Mamadou Sakho, who Rodgers was quick to criticise following the recent home defeat to Aston Villa.

The France international was clumsy in conceding the corner which led to Villa’s winner, and regardless of how many Liverpool fans try to pretend otherwise, he has largely failed to translate his international performances to his current club.

Alex Livesey/Getty Images

But given the timing of the goal, there was still ample time for the attacking players to recover the situation. (And what about the marking from the corner itself?)

The same could be said on Wednesday night in Switzerland, when Liverpool’s opponents scored with 40 minutes remaining from yet another set piece.

In both games, Philippe Coutinho started as a No. 10, the position which bears most creative responsibility in a 4-2-3-1; as with his season in general so far, he failed to deliver.

As reported by Andy Hunter in The Guardian, the Brazilian even snubbed Rodgers when subbed for Adam Lallana after the pair had angrily exchanged words in the first half.

But, as with Sterling, and unlike Sakho and Balotelli, Rodgers cannot speak highly enough of him whenever his performance levels are rightly questioned.

For a manager who continually stresses the importance of the collective, there is a growing impression that he treats individuals very differently, which cannot be healthy for a dressing room environment in the long run.

It is difficult to look beyond the tension between Rodgers and FSG’s transfer committee, which he has criticised in the past, as a factor.

Only Sakho and goalkeeper Simon Mignolet of last summer’s committee signings remain at the club, for example, with the latter twice berated by his captain on the pitch in recent times and reportedly likely to be replaced by Victor Valdes if the Spaniard recovers from his cruciate injury, per Anthony Chapman at the Express.

Rodgers’ silence on the matter is far from golden for the Belgian.

Such open criticism of Sakho, meanwhile, surely contributed to the Frenchman ill-advisedly storming out of the ground after being left out of the squad for the Merseyside derby last weekend, spotted by a Twitter user (via Eurosport).

It remains to be seen how Balotelli, a far more fiery character, will react.

What works in Rodgers’ and Liverpool’s favour is that it may well prove his last chance at a big club.

But such a strength in position cannot be relied upon indefinitely.

Rodgers needs to adhere to his own principles—outlined in that Tottenham pre-match press conference only five weeks ago—if the team, of which is Balotelli is a part, after all, is to flourish once more.