Mario Balotelli: Why Manchester City Was the Wrong Club at the Wrong Time

Mario Balotelli's latest act for Manchester City could prove his last. The endlessly enigmatic striker was sent off against Arsenal on Sunday as his team suffered a 1-0 defeat that all but handed the Premier League title to Manchester United.

It could have been worse. Balotelli was fortunate to still be on the field when he received a second yellow card in stoppage time—having assaulted Alex Song with a wild, dangerous, studs-up tackle early on.

Referee Martin Atkinson didn't see it, but Balotelli's manager Roberto Mancini admitted afterwards that Balotelli should have walked. Mancini even encouraged the FA to investigate video evidence.

Balotelli has long since breached his manager's trust and would stand alone on this one. As far as Mancini was concerned, his fallible Italian had imploded too often this season to deserve anything more.

And when a reporter asked if Balotelli would be sold in the summer, Mancini gave his strongest indication yet that the 21-year-old had finally broken his resolve.

"Probably, but I don’t know. It depends because Balotelli is a fantastic player," Mancini told reporters.

"

I love him as a guy, I love him as a player, because I know him. He's not a bad guy. He's a fantastic player.

But, at this moment, I'm very sorry for him because he continues to lose his talent, his quality. I hope, for him, that he can understand that he's in a bad way for his future, and he can change his behaviour.

"

"Why always me?" read the famous t-shirt exposed by Balotelli during City's 6-1 romp at Old Trafford last October.

Six months later, we've been given the answer many times over. It's not us, it's you—Mario. And what was at first endearing, has for many of us grown evermore infuriating.

On the pitch this season, we've had the red card against Liverpool (Nov. 27), the stamp on Scott Parker (Jan. 22), and now, the sending off against Arsenal—plus, whatever comes of the Song incident.

Off the field, we've had two breaches of club curfew (Dec. 11 and Mar. 12), a car crash in his Bentley and the revealing of an affair he had with a prostitute.

That's just a summary—and those are just the things we know about. "What a life," so sung Noel Gallagher, a lifelong City fan and lover of all things Balotelli.

Naturally, there are those who blame Mancini for Balotelli's indiscretions, those who feel his manager's failure to harness a talent may even have cost City the title.

But lest we forget, Jose Mourinho deems Balotelli "unmanageable." And lest we forget, Balotelli has time and again said Mancini is a man who knows how he ticks and who knows how to get the best out of him.

Balotelli came to City because of Mancini. He'll leave the club in spite of him.

We shouldn't blame Mancini for Balotelli's unhinged ways, but we can say for sure he made a mistake in signing him. This City team, in the midst of a heady revolution, is the wrong place at the wrong time for a hot-headed talent with a lot of growing up to do.

Where Mancini needed calm, Balotelli has delivered chaos. And in a squad hit by the self-enforced exile of Carlos Tevez, the last thing City needed was a striker prone to disciplinary breaches and red cards.

A deal that cost City an estimated £24 million once looked like it could finally put United in their place. But while Balotelli is undoubtedly a huge talent, he was not ready to become City's Eric Cantona.

With hindsight, a better move for Balotelli would have been to a more established and settled squad, with less responsibility on his shoulders and the space to mature slowly—somewhere like Barcelona, Arsenal, Bayern Munich or even United.

Instead, he landed straight in a rapidly evolving team gunning for its first title since 1968, and worse, he found himself billed as its savior. Quite the intoxicating environment for a loose cannon, wouldn't you say?

Whether being at City exaggerated his antics can never be known, but it certainly hasn't helped Balotelli's development.

The dysfunctional marriage between City and Balotelli has been a sweet romance at times, but ultimately the club—and their manager—appear to have realized the fleeting good times are not worth the many bad.

It's sad for both parties, but they really should have seen it coming.