Tens of supporters swarmed around the Melwood gates at 9.04pm on Friday as Balotelli left in a people carrier with his entourage.<\/p>\n
Balotelli’s agent held discussions on Thursday and Friday, with a key point believed to be the Merseyside outfit’s desire to obtain some kind of guarantee about the discipline of the mercurial 24-year-old Italy striker.<\/p>\n
The player on Thursday added credence to the reports that he is set to return to English football by saying it would be his last day at Milan’s training ground.<\/p>\n
The Serie A side followed that later with a statement on their website revealing he had said his farewells to his team-mates.<\/p>\n
Liverpool have been looking for a marquee striker to replace the departed Luis Suarez this summer but their interest in Balotelli represents a remarkable about-turn from around three weeks ago.<\/p>\n
With new signing Rickie Lambert the only frontline support for Daniel Sturridge and the transfer deadline nearing, a move for Balotelli has apparently become more attractive.<\/p>\n
He is a proven performer and scored Italy’s winner in the World Cup opener against England in Manaus.<\/p>\n
But the baggage that comes with him is considerable. His spell at City from summer 2010 to January 2013 was a whirlwind one, with occasional sparkling performances interspersed with volatility on the field and erratic behaviour off it.<\/p>\n
His numerous misdemeanours famously included fireworks being set off in his bathroom, throwing a dart at a youth-team player and training-ground bust-ups with team-mates and manager Roberto Mancini.<\/p>\n
On the positive side he played a key role in the 2011 FA Cup win and contributed to the following year’s Premier League success, but he also hindered progress by accruing four red cards.<\/p>\n
City – for whom he scored a total of 30 goals in 80 appearances in all competitions – eventually tired of the circus surrounding him and offloaded the former Inter star to his boyhood club AC Milan.<\/p>\n
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Tens of supporters swarmed around the Melwood gates at 9.04pm on Friday as Balotelli left in a people carrier with his entourage. Balotelli’s agent held discussions on Thursday and Friday, with a key point believed to be the Merseyside outfit’s desire to obtain some kind of guarantee about the discipline of the mercurial 24-year-old Italy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4632,"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4630\/revisions\/4632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}