BALOTELLI'S GERRARD-PIRLO COMPARISON IS LAUGHABLE

Liverpool's controversial new striker really rates his club captain and even goes so far as to compare him with Italy's peerless midfield maestro. Is this just the latest example of Balotelli crazy talk?

D. Ray Morton, 16th October 2014.

Mario Balotelli, recently dropped by the Italian national team, certainly seems to be buddying up with his new captain, Steven Gerrard, recently retired from the England national team

Mario Balotelli has come out with yet another cracker of a statement. The Italian international, born in Palermo to Ghanaian immigrants, is known for coming out with controversial soundbites but this one seems outright bizarre.

Comparing his club captain, Steven Gerrard to his Italian teammate Andrea Pirlo, in an interview with Sport he said: "Gerrard is an amazing player. I had really not seen much of him before this season, apart from for England, but wow. I think of him as being at the same level as Pirlo."

He continued: "Vision, technique, but he is powerful as well. Stevie can do anything. It’s going to be very difficult for the team to find another player like him in the future."

His words are complimentary, hugely so, but puzzling. Why would Balotelli compare two polar opposite player types with virtually nothing in common other than the fact that they have played in similar on-field positions, not roles, for the past twelve months?

Both players retired from international football after last summer's World Cup and as England fans released a collective sigh of relief for change, fans of the Azzurri started to panic. For their countries, Gerrard and Pirlo's contributions have been radically different. With Gerrard's legs having gone and the Liverpool skipper stepping aside, Roy Hodgson's team go in search of finding a new deep midfielder, someone with an engine to suit their direct game. In the case of Italy, finding a replacement seemed a hopeless task until new manager Antonio Conte immediately convinced the mercurial Juventus midfielder to come back. Truth of the matter is, at international level at least, Gerrard was never a key player for his country whereas an entire team, effectively so, was built around Pirlo.

Pirlo is also a born winner with the medals to prove it. He has won the highest domestic honour of becoming Serie A champion five times: twice with AC Milan and having just completed three-in-a-row, including an undefeated season (2011/12), with Juventus. He has bagged the Champions League twice with Milan and won the 2006 World Cup with the national side. Steven Gerrard has had successes, notably beating Pirlo's Milan in an unforgettable 2005 Champions League final triumph in Istanbul but domestically and internationally, he has always come up short, never winning that lucrative but elusive Premier League title.

Andrea Pirlo continues to play a key role for club and country but is rotated wisely to get the best out of his technical talent and invaluable experience

The England vs. Italy match at the World Cup just over three months ago demonstrated a gulf in quality or at least effectiveness. As England ran around like headless chickens, Pirlo orchestrated a possession masterclass with his side coming out 2-1 victors. It is perhaps this lack of international success that haunts Gerrard similarly to two other midfielders of England's "Golden Generation": Paul Scholes and Frank Lampard. While all three were heroes to their respective clubs, they never quite won over their entire nation the way Pirlo has.

With effective use of rotation from his club Juventus, Pirlo continues to be an important figure in their Serie A-leading side as Gerrard has had his critics this season for a loss of form. It seems Pirlo and those around him know who he is and how to use him better than how Liverpool and England have treated Gerrard. In his recent book, I Think Therefore I Play, Pirlo enlightens us about what kind of a person he is: "Generally-speaking, I reckon I'm a pretty switched-on guy. I've an opinion about everything and I'm not afraid to express it, defend it and, where necessary, shout it from the rooftops". 

This seems a world away from the bottled-up character of Gerrard which was revealed to us in March this year when he admitted he had been seeing a shrink, not just for on-field issues but also for issues in his personal life. Reflecting on his frustrated psychological state he revealed why: "...you bite your children’s heads off from time to time...blame Alex (Gerrard’s wife) for everything and blah, blah, blah!" and continued: "I am a lot more patient as a person now and I think I’ve improved as a person." This before THAT SLIP and the subsequent collapse of Liverpool's title charge followed by an even more miserable World Cup campaign.

So it seems Balotelli is quite a long way off when comparing these two vastly different personas. But hey, should we expect any bit of sense from Super Mario? Probably not.

PREMIER LEAGUE WRAP-UP AFTER WEEKEND 2

The English and Welsh Premier League is past its second weekend as title co-favourites Manchester City and Chelsea dominate whilst the supposedly revitalised Manchester United continue to falter.

 

D. Ray Morton, 26th August 2014.

Stevan Jovetic put in arguably his finest Premier league performance thus far last night as he scored twice to help Manchester City beat Liverpool 3-1 at the Etihad

The Good

Last night, Manchester City swept aside a defensively frail Liverpool side thanks to a fine brace from in-form Stevan Jovetic and another from substitute Sergio Agüero in an exciting clash at the Etihad. Liverpool scored one of their own through another sub, Rickie Lambert, but it was not enough to claw back against the defending champions. Jovetic's performance was particularly impressive demonstrating the pace and technique he had shown at his former club Fiorentina but was not seen much last campaign as he struggled with injuries. Edin Džeko is another luxurious forward option and with Álvaro Negredo yet to come back, one imagines goals should not be a problem for Manuel Pellegrini's team as the campaign wears on.

Tottenham are sitting pretty on top of the Premier League table thanks to a storming win against Queens Park Rangers at White Hart Lane. Mauricio Pochettino's men strolled to a 4-0 victory against former Spurs boss Harry Redknapp's newly-promoted relegation candidates. The manner of the victory was worth taking note of. Spurs pressed extremely well and managed to keep possession beautifully throughout. This was the brand of football the Tottenham faithful wished for last season but it never materialised under André Villas-Boas or the man who followed him, Tim Sherwood. Érik Lamela impressed again and the club record signing is starting to show signs that he will not continue to be the flop that he was last season. New recruit, Eric Dier looks like an early candidate for signing of the season. Pochettino is developing a collective confidence at Spurs and as long as their players continue to grasp his philosophy, they will push hard for a Champions League spot. 

Tottenham celebrate during their 4-0 thrashing of Queens Park Rangers

Speaking of Champions League spots, we move onto...

The Bad

 

Another disappointing weekend for Manchester United. This was the side that was supposed to pull up its pants this season, attack the top four spots and maybe even make a run for the title. Instead, two weeks in, they look like a shambles. Louis van Gaal's three at the back continues to struggle and their 1-1 away draw to Sunderland was lucky if anything as the Black Cats played the better football. Marcos Rojo and Ángel Di Maria (a reported €80m record signing) are set to come in soon and the other major clubs will get stuck into their European campaigns but big questions are being asked already. Is three at the back the way forward in a league that predominantly features lone striker formations? Will doubts creep in? Will the new players bed in or become expensive failures? Right now it is looking grim. Even if they continue to throw their money around and go after further targets before 1st September, such a rapidly slapped together XI could struggle some more. Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera, Rojo and Di Maria are all fine players but are not the types to run things on their own.

Di Maria in at Manchester United but that is no guarantee of immediate success

We have already mentioned Liverpool but did not mention the signing of Mario Balotelli. At €20m, it represents a potential bargain but the entire deal is somewhat puzzling. AC Milan were very quick to show him the door despite not having that many great strikers at San Siro already. Filippo Inzaghi became disillusioned with his presence and felt he was a poisonous presence in the dressing room. Brendan Rodgers has dealt with some bad boys in the past but "Super Mario" brings that to a whole new level. Even if he behaves himself off the pitch, he can be a right nuisance on the pitch when things do not go his way. Last season at Milan, he tended to sulk and move around very little if he felt the team was not playing well. Such arrogance, laziness, whatever you will call it, could simply not be accepted under the glaring cameras and the loud-mouthed reactions of the Premier League machine. Balotelli brings his best in patches. That is what he has done throughout his whole career. He may score a free-kick or two but do not expect a Luis Suárez replacement.

Adam Lallana, Mario Balotelli and Kenny Dalglish all happy...before Liverpool proceeded to get thumped by Manchester City

Results

Saturday

Aston Villa 0-0 Newcastle

Chelsea 2-0 Leicester (D. Costa, E. Hazard)

Crystal Palace 1-3 West Ham (Chamakh; Zaraté, Downing, C. Cole)

Southampton 0-0 West Brom

Swansea 1-0 Burnley (N. Dyer)

Everton 2-2 Arsenal (Coleman, Naismith; Ramsey, Giroud)

Sunday

Hull City 1-1 Stoke City (Jelavic; Shawcross)

Tottenham 4-0 QPR (Chadli 2, Dier, Adebayor)

Sunderland 1-1 Manchester United (Rodwell; Mata)

Monday

Manchester City 3-1 Liverpool (Jovetic 2, Agüero; Lambert)

INZAGHI FACES A NIGHTMARE SEASON WITH AC MILAN

With their new manager Filippo Inzaghi at the helm, the Rossoneri have suffered two heavy defeats in a row this pre-season and it does not look as if things can improve once the real action in Serie A gets under way.

 

D. Ray Morton, 28th July 2014.

New Milan manager Filippo Inzaghi looks on in horror as his side are vanquished by Premier League champions Manchester City

Italian teams have a tendency not to take exhibitions very seriously but AC Milan's most recent appearances will certainly worry their newly-appointed manager Filippo Inzaghi. The seven-time European champions were dreadful in their 3-0 loss to Greek side Olympiakos three nights ago in Toronto and they were equally abject in their 5-1 loss to Manchester City yesterday in Pittsburgh. To say Inzaghi has a tough challenge ahead of him in the coming season would be a grand understatement.

A.C. Milan are not only in crisis, they are a club who have been slowly dying for several years now. Having dominated the European and Italian football scenes on and off again during the Silvio Berlusconi era, the club are now spiralling out of control, incapable of challenging even in a now weakened Italian top flight. Serie A used to be the strongest league in the world. It is now probably Europe's fourth league, arguably fifth with the English Premier League, Spain's Liga and Germany's Bundesliga comfortably ahead. French football is on the rise too purely down to the rich owners of Paris St. Germain and Monaco.

Looking through the Rossoneri squad right now is a pretty depressing experience. In the past, even in times when the club underachieved, there was still a lot of star power available. They could be accused of being a group of talented individuals and not a great team at times. Nowadays, they simply do not have great individuals and they certainly do not have a team that can trouble the likes of Juventus, Roma, Napoli, Fiorentina and local rivals Internazionale. They are a mere shell of their former selves.

There does not appear to be a strategy for rebuilding either. The club's ownership is deadlocked in a battle between Silvio Berlusconi's daughter, Barbara, and Adriano Galliani, the shady vice-president/CEO who has been at the club since 1986. Their plan this summer was to try and offload troublesome striker Mario Balotelli for as high a fee as possible based on having a good World Cup. Though "Super Mario" scored against England in Italy's first match, his miserable performances in the subsequent two games dropped his value if anything. It was rumoured that they would accept a bid as low as €20m which Arsenal thought about for a while before pulling the plug on what would be too risky a gamble.

Strange bedfellows: Adriano Galliani and Barbara Berlusconi are now running Milan but there is zero cohesion between them

 

Even in they did sell Balotelli, who would they replace him with? The San Siro, at least the red side of it, is not the most tempting destination for a top-class player these days. Milan finished eighth last season. A disaster but there is no improvement in sight. Manchester United, who had their own nightmare season last campaign, finishing outside of the European positions, are totally restructuring and improving. They have an exciting manager in Louis van Gaal, they have the financial means to sign big enough names and they are quietly optimistic about challenging for the title. Milan have no such aspirations.

They have a young, inexperienced manager, a weak squad and tonne of debt without owning a ground from which they can generate revenue. Their player roster looks like a "who's who" of failures between the pudgy central defensive pair of Adil Rami and Philippe Mexès, flops like Robinho and Keisuke Honda as well as old-timers like Michael Essien and Christian Abbiati who seems not to know when to retire.

Simply put, the whole thing is a mess and a shambles. They finished eighth last year and there is absolutely no indication that they can do better in 2014/15. Sorry, Pippo. You were a club legend as a player, just as your predecessor Clarence Seedorf had been, but now you will enter the meat grinder. Good luck.

SUÁREZ BITE OVERSHADOWS URUGUAY'S WIN AGAINST ITALY

D. Ray Morton, 25th June 2014.

Luis Suárez readjusts his fangs after taking a bite out of a clearly shocked Giorgio Chiellini

Uruguay eliminated Italy from the World Cup yesterday thanks to a late winner from Diego Godín but the focus of everyone's attention will be on the bizarre biting incident between Luis Suárez and  Giorgio Chiellini. With the clock running down, the game deadlocked at 0-0 with Italy poised to go through, Suárez, during a tangle with the Azzurri centre-half, appeared to bite down on the shoulder of his opponent. Chiellini immediately reacted by trying to elbow the Uruguayan forward off him and went to ground omitting a scream of sheer confused disgust. The referee and his officials somehow missed the incident, Suárez stayed on and Uruguay went on to win. This is the third time Suárez has bitten an opponent in his career, the most recent being his bite on Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic in 2013. Football's most unusual signature move.

The game itself was defensive, scrappy and full of niggling fouls and attempts to con the referee who had a poor showing throughout failing to stomp his authority on the situation. Mario Balotelli, who had picked up a yellow card ruling him out of any potential second round game, had been taken off by Italy at half-time, Cesare Prandelli fearing he may get sent off. He must have been stunned when Claudio Marchisio was given his marching orders in the second half for a challenge that seemed a little dangerous but hardly worthy of a straight red. That decision notably crushed Italy who had been in control of the game until that point. They were forced to sit very deep but will argue that they would have had a fighting chance had Suárez been correctly disciplined for his bite.

Italy lost, however, and manager Cesare Prandelli announced his resignation immediately afterwards. Prandelli seems to have blamed himself as he was expected to stay on until 2016 regardless of results. There have been questions over squad selection and perhaps he could have given himself a better chance by bringing Giuseppe Rossi as an alternative striking option rather than having to opt for the quite immobile Ciro Immobile or the ageing Antonio Cassano. Balotelli let his manager down badly too. His immaturity, now at age 23, looks like something he will never shake off. Why Arsène Wenger would gamble on him at Arsenal is anyone's guess. This was also Andrea Pirlo's last tournament game for Italy, possibly Gianluigi Buffon's too. A disappointing end to two glorious international careers.

But where does this leave Suárez and Uruguay now? They have an impressive Colombia to face in the second round and FIFA have promised to punish the Liverpool striker. They could very well throw the book at him and give him a lengthy ban. It could also affect a potential move to either of the two La Liga giants, Real Madrid or Barcelona. Suárez's family has hinted that his time at Liverpool will be up and Barcelona have been attempting to engineer a swap-plus-cash move involving Alexis Sánchez. Question is, will Barça do away with the Chilean, one of the players of the tournament, only to switch him with a, doubtlessly talented, but highly volatile replacement?

So praise for Diego Godín, Uruguay's saviour but shame on Balotelli and especially Suárez for making the match one of the ugliest of the competition. Uruguay advance but offer very little against Colombia who should sweep them aside without too much trouble.

ITALIAN POSSESSION SUFFOCATES ENGLAND

D. Ray Morton, 15th June 2014.

"Super Mario" Balotelli powers in Italy's winner from Antonio Candreva's wonderful cross

By the end, it was a tale of two knackered veterans on opposing sides. Andrea Pirlo and Italy triumphant, England's Steven Gerrard throwing himself on the ground for non-existent penalties. Both could barely walk by the conclusion of it but Pirlo could probably pass the ball if he was confined to a wheelchair. England physio, Gary Lewin, somehow ended up on a stretcher. The Azzurri defeated Roy Hodgson's boys in the heat of Manaus by two goals to one with England's only consolation being Uruguay's shock 3-1 defeat to Costa Rica earlier on in the evening. A bad start to their World Cup campaign though not an insurmountable one.

England had a few threatening outlets. Liverpool duo Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge offered pace and energy where others did not. Wayne Rooney included in the under-performers who was stuck out on the left flank. An assist, all things considered, for Sturridge's goal was a bonus considering he was isolated throughout and played completely out of position. England's passing had been that bit longer. Italy managed to take pressure off themselves by controlling the tempo with simple, somewhat "tiki-taka"-like five yarders. The English were a tad mechanical. Less link-up and more panic in an eagerness to impress. They were seemingly allergic to the concept of recycling possession, keeping the ball when a direct route to goal does not instantly materialise. Like a bad five-a-side team with no-one giving instructions.

The whole affair had a touch of winter players versus summer players about it. Controlling possession cleverly in extreme heat is not a feature of the English game where the cold winter weather dictates the tempo we have known to expect in the Premier League. Credit must be given to Gabriel Paletta, who I had personally flagged as a potential weak link for Italy. His dodgy come-over/mullet managed to prove me wrong, however, as the veteran centre half dealt with the occasion splendidly. Mario Balotelli did his job sufficiently. Movement is not a feature of his game and it actually worked very well in his favour last night. When he had to do something, which was not very often, he did it perfectly. His 50th minute goal, which turned out to be the winner, was well taken after a fine assist by Antonio Candreva.

Possession was the theme of the tactical analysis. Italy used the ball much, much better. It was perhaps symbolic of an overall clash of football cultures. It felt like philosophers against savages at times. England were naive to think that the use of pace and pressing would work in such conditions. Italy, whether by chance or not, seemed to be better prepared overall. Pirlo hitting the bar at the end was somewhat poetic. Joe Hart stood by, dumbfounded, as the ball swerved magnificently and thumped the woodwork. It would have been goal of the tournament so far. Lesson: How to play in hot weather. Solution: Unlike England.

But as mentioned, Uruguay lost and looked awful in their respective game. Even ignoring Luis Suárez's exclusion, their defence was in tatters. Diegos Lugano and Forlán looked especially past it. This is a team that conceded 25 goals in qualifying, getting in at the last available spot. Talk of Suárez and Edinson Cavani overshadowed what is fundamentally a poor side, nowhere near as good as say, Chile or Colombia. Speaking of Colombia, they looked quite good in their Group C match. They hammered the supposedly stubborn Greeks 3-0 as Côte d'Ivoire saw off Japan with a 2-1 win. An exciting matchday though the 2am (my local time/GMT) kick-off was a bit of a strain on sleepy eyes.