What to make of Mario Balotelli's slow start at Liverpool

Mario Balotelli has started only four Premier League games for Liverpool this season, yet already he is being doubted, dismissed as a flop. That might not be entirely fair, but it is understandable. Although Liverpool signed twelve players over the summer, Balotelli is the one who stands out. He wasn’t their most expensive signing, but he was probably the biggest name and, more than that, he’s the one who is seen the replacement for Luis Suárez. And that really is the biggest problem: Balotelli isn’t Suárez.

The contrast between Balotelli’s contribution so far this season and Suárez’s last is striking. Suárez scored 31 goals and registered 12 assists in 33 league games; Balotelli is yet to get off the mark in either department. Suárez averaged 5.5 shots and 2.7 key passes per game.

Balotelli is averaging 4.6 shots and 0.8 key passes. Suárez completed 2.8 dribbles per game and failed with 4.4 per game; Balotelli has completed 0.4 dribbles per game and had 1.2 unsuccessful dribbles per game. He simply isn’t as involved. Even in aerial duels, where you’d expect Balotelli as a taller, more muscular man to have the edge, Suárez comes out on top, winning 0.7 per game as opposed to Balotelli’s 0.4.

It’s only four starts so perhaps the comparison with this season isn’t fair. Last season, for AC Milan, Balotelli scored 14 goals and registered six assists in 25 league starts and 5 substitute appearances. He managed 5.1 shots per game and 1.1 key passes. He completed 1.9 dribbles per game and failed with 1.9 per game. He won 0.8 aerial duels per game. The figures are better, even if they are not quite at Suárez’s level.

And then there’s the other part of Suárez’s game, his relentless energy, the way he would hound players in possession. Last season the Uruguay made 1.1 tackles per game and 0.3 interceptions. Balotelli, last season, made just 0.4 tackles per game and 0.2 interceptions. This season, though, he has made 1.2 tackles per game and 0.2 interceptions; his ball-winning quality, in other words, is just the same as Suárez’s. Given so many doubts when Balotelli signed surrounded his ability to lead the press, that is, at the very least, an encouraging sign. Brendan Rodgers has said that Balotelli is trying desperately hard to adapt and there, it seems, is evidence.

There are two other issues at play here. The first is obvious: that Liverpool as a whole haven’t been playing well and so even Suárez may not have been as effective in the early games of this season as he was last. There remain significant defensive issues, particularly from set-pieces, while the injury to Daniel Sturridge has meant an even greater burden being placed on Balotelli.

Then there is his reputation. Everything Balotelli does is scrutinised – and this article, of course, is part of that. When he walked off the pitch after the defeat in Basel having failed to acknowledge Liverpool’s fans it became a story; with the majority of players nobody would even have noticed. There have been reports he has a special minder to keep him out of mischief off the pitch. Rodgers seems to delight in talk about his work with Balotelli: can it really be true that he had never defended a corner before joining Liverpool, something Rodgers claimed to be the case after the win at Tottenham?

And bound up with all that is the pattern that has emerged at every club Balotelli has been at: the positive start, the ructions, the increasing disaffection culminating in the sulky departure. He is still only 24, which offers a certain mitigation, but the worry is that, if things start to go wrong, Balotelli is incapable of turning them around. Perhaps he has matured and is better equipped these days to deal with misfortune, but it’s hard not to feel that there is an urgency to him rediscovering his form, that if it doesn’t come soon those who have already written him off will be proved right. The great hope lies in those ball retrieval stats: the great individual is at least trying to fit in.