Who would you prefer – Welbeck or Balotelli?

4 Responses to “Who would you prefer – Welbeck or Balotelli?”

1. Bryan Flood , on March 19th, 2012 at 11:24 pm , said:

   Football boils down to attitude as much as talent so this is fairly straight forward, as a red I admire Balotelli, with few less haped potatoes on his shoulder he would be an odds on Ballon ‘dor winner one day, unfortunately he is a twat, his arrogance is yet unfounded and while Welbeck possibly has less talent(but is still a great talent) he will ultimately win more and be part of more winning sides because he wants to win and is prepared to what it takes to achieve that. Balotelli can join the Gascoigne, Totti, Le Tissier, Shearer school of wasted, win nowt, god given talent. Danny will maintain his desire and I look forward to being around to watch it.

2. Brett , on March 20th, 2012 at 4:49 pm , said:

   Thanks for the comment Bryan, really appreciate it.

   I agree that attitude will ultimately be the making of a player and that Balotelli has a long way to go before he learns how to make best use of his enviable self-belief. I’m not sure personally if he has the technical ability to become one of the best, he has the natural ability perhaps, but his basic footballing technique, to me, appears sloppy (Possibly on account of him believing he’s already ‘got it all’).

   As for the players you mentioned, I think their inability to achieve what their talents potentially ‘deserved’ was down to their career choices, not necessarily because of any parallels that can be drawn with Balotelli’s career trajectory.

   I’m not sure Danny Welbeck is the model professional either, however he’s definitely shown signs, like you say, that he’s willing to work hard on his game to succeed.

3. Maz , on March 23rd, 2012 at 4:16 pm , said:

   To be fair, if both played for United I’d go with Balotelli. But how often do you look at the whole package, what a certain player brings and choose him over a seemingly better player. I think you have to be really good in order for people to tolerate your eclectic nature. Balotelli has not showed that to me yet.

   So I think we’re really choosing SAF over Mancini. No big surprise there but it just shows you how players can be different under two managers. Was it last year or the year before that Welbeck celebrated in a Cantona manner and he sent him back to the reserves. You have to earn certain things. SAF was making that clear. It paid off. Welbeck is a hard working player that doesn’t ause problems. Balotelli, well we see how that goes.

   If I’m playing 5 a side and I need a player for my team for just the next game I’d go with Balotelli, but in the long term it’s always Welbeck. No doubt.

4. Brett , on March 24th, 2012 at 12:43 pm , said:

   Thanks Maz, as always your comments are very welcome and appreciated.

   I understand the points you make and in general I agree.

   I’m not sure if SAF would be able to deal with Balotelli any better than Mancini, as you suggest. It’s accepted that SAF ‘deals’ with individuals better, but that doesn’t always include showing patience where it might be needed. If we take the Tevez situation as the only real reference point we have for the way those two managers deal with the same player we can see SAF just got rid, whereas Mancini (through a combination of a lot of things) has managed to get the player back playing. Whether the way Mancini has handled Tevez as a whole is better, we will only really be able to say in the future. Taking his attitude out of the equation, on the surface of it, having a player of the quality of Tevez in your squad is surely better than not? (Of course, you can’t take his attitude out of the equation in reality, but then again, we don’t really know the truth about his attitude. The City players seem to be pleased to have him back)

   Balotelli I think, as I said in my reply to Bryan above, is a naturally gifted player, instinctive even, but technically he’s lacking. He doesn’t set himself up to recieve the ball correctly or kick the ball well (amongst other flaws in his general technique). You have to be extra-extra-special to be able to get by without much of a ‘learned’ technique and he isn’t.

   Welbeck every time for me. My 5-a-side needs a keeper, so maybe I’ll give Mario a call.