you know what is the weirdest part about all of this? The typical "Balotelli paradox" has seemingly been completely reversed.
Over the summer, and basically throughout Balotelli's career, the question was always "he has the talent and potential to be world-class, but does he want to put in the effort and the hard work to be world class?"
And it's exactly because of that that it is so bizarre, because from what I see in the games he's played in, the paradox has completely inverted---he DOES work hard, he puts in a shift, he tracks back, he presses, but suddenly, the talent is gone. He doesn't read the movement of our other players well, he misses sitters, he shoots the ball in impossible positions and ends up breaking down our moves.
That performance against QPR was up there with some of the dross we saw from Andy Carroll. Not because he missed an open goal (that happens), but because every time we looked threatening in an attack, when he got the ball, everything just.... stopped. We looked static, out of ideas. The antithesis of last season.
I really don't get it. We all wanted him to work hard and put in effort and behave; he's done all of that.
But I don't think any of us expected that the talent would disappear as well.
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