Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers, has admitted that Mario Balotelli was not the first choice to replace Luis Suarez, who left for Barcelona this summer.
The Italian striker arrived at Anfield few days before the transfer window closed, for a deal worth €20million. He has only found the net once and is already the target of critics, who feel he is not prolific enough.
Rodgers has had to come to Balotelli’s defence at times and has revealed the controversial frontman was the only choice they had in the end.
“I always said it was about availability and affordability of players,” he told reporters. “Mario was the one right at the very end who was available for that.
“I said when he came in that it was a calculated risk and it’s something I have to work on to try to make it work for the team.
“You assess what the group had. We brought in Rickie Lambert as someone who can play some games for us and come off the bench and be an impact player for us in certain games.
“Daniel [Sturridge] is a top Premier League player but has shown during his time here that he does get injuries so we needed to prepare for that. Obviously Fabio Borini looked like he was on his way out [to Sunderland].
“We had attempts for other strikers that didn’t materialise for one reason or another, so it left us right at the end of the window with a decision on whether just to go with what we had, when experience told us we were too light, or take a calculated risk on a player who has quality, and then could we get it out of him consistently?”
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