It was a long time coming, but Mario Balotelli’s winning goal for Liverpool against Tottenham Tuesday night has Reds fans wondering if at last the young Italian will come good and remain at Anfield, after looking almost certain to be moved on in the summer.
Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge now fit again after being out for most of the season so far thinks that he and the 24-year-old Balotelli can form a winning partnership together.
Despite replacing Sturridge and scoring his first Premiership goal since moving to Anfield from AC Milan, arguably the best game we have seen Balotelli play was against Tottenham on his Liverpool debut back in August, a match in which he played alongside Sturridge in the attack.
Given that fact and with the pair becoming good friends the 25-year-old Sturridge feels that together they can form a goal-scoring partnership.
Sturridge said: ‘He’s been waiting for a while to break his duck and been working very hard in training, and now he has scored one in the league I am sure things will start to go his way now.
‘For me it’s always about trying to help players who are here, not just Mario, but all the boys who are at the club. It’s not easy to settle into a new team, a new area, a new lifestyle, with different people around you and so on and so forth.
‘People don’t ever take that into account. I just try to do my bit, although I’m not taking any credit for him scoring – I’m just happy he did.’
Sturridge added: ‘Whatever team the manager chooses to put out I will do my best whoever I have a partnership with. I try to adapt to whoever I am playing with and bring out the best in each other, and we (me and Mario) click when we are playing together.’
‘But it is not just about me trying to do what I do – in the Tottenham game (in August) I played a little bit differently to how I did on Tuesday.
‘I know Philippe Coutinho likes to thread balls through so I had to play on the shoulder a bit more.
‘With Mario I can move around and go into wide areas because I know he will occupy the centre-halves.
‘You play differently with different players and I am sure we will strike up a partnership in the future, I have no doubts about that.
