Brendan Rodgers is planning to reprimand Mario Balotelli after another disappointing night for Liverpool in the Champions League and the latest demonstration that their manager is growing increasingly frustrated by the behaviour and form of the player he signed to take Luis Suárez's place.
Rodgers confirmed he was unhappy with Balotelli's decision to swap shirts with Pepe before they had gone down the tunnel at the end of a first half in which Real Madrid had scored all their goals in a 3-0 win. Liverpool disciplined Mamadou Sakho when he did the same with Samuel Eto'o in a game at Chelsea last December and Rodgers did not hide his annoyance about a player whose signing Jamie Carragher, analysing his former club in his television role, described as "a panic".
“We will deal with it,” Rodgers said. “We had an incident with a player last year and we did it internally. It is not something I stand for. If you want to do that, you do it at the end of the game. It is something I will deal with tomorrow.”
Rodgers’s thinly-veiled criticisms of Balotelli, while explaining why he had substituted him at half-time, also showed how exasperated the Liverpool manager is becoming with a player who has scored only once, against Ludogorets, since his €20m move from Milan.
Rodgers praised substitute Adam Lallana for his workrate with the clear implication that Balotelli had not been trying hard enough. "It was purely tactical," he said. "Adam Lallana came on and he was tireless. That's the minimum requirement here. You need to press and you need to work. I felt we needed a bit more movement centrally to occupy the centre halves."
Cristiano Ronaldo gave Madrid a 25th-minute lead and the Ballon d'Or winner was clapped off by the Anfield crowd on a night when Karim Benzema scored twice to leave Liverpool with one win and two defeats from their opening three Champions League games.
There were isolated cheers for the announcement of Balotelli’s substitution and Carragher was unsparing in his criticisms of the former Manchester City striker. “I’d be surprised to see him here next season. It was just a panic; they needed someone. They left it too late. A lot of the players have come in and done a decent job here and there, but nobody’s really done anything. They bring in Balotelli late on – it’s obviously a panic.”
Jamie Redknapp, also part of Sky's coverage, questioned why Liverpool had signed Balotelli in the first place. "I don't blame Mario Balotelli – I blame Brendan Rodgers for bringing him here. How he thought he could turn around a player that Mourinho, Mancini, Prandelli have all washed their hands of …
“There’s a reason when you go to the supermarket and things are half price. Why on earth they went for him, I’ll never know. They should have just left him alone. The fact he (Rodgers)went and got him, it just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
