• Manchester City boss rates Balotelli among world's
best
• Joleon Lescott likely to continue at left-back against
Liverpool
Roberto Mancini has brushed aside the disappointment of
failing to coax Fernando Torres away from Liverpool this summer by
speaking of his confidence that Mario Balotelli will become a
superior player to the Spaniard.
Torres was among Mancini's principal targets at the end of last
season – "probably", the City manager replied when asked if he had
ever felt close to getting his man – but the striker decided to
stay at Anfield after several months in which he gave serious
consideration to leaving Merseyside.
Mancini acknowledged it was a setback to City's ambitious plans
to build the strongest team in English football but, preparing for
Liverpool's visit to Eastlands tomorrow, he emphasised that
Balotelli's £22.5m signing from Internazionale has softened the
blow.
"In my view, Balotelli can be as good as Torres and even
better," the City manager said. "That's because Torres can play
only as a striker whereas Balotelli can play as a striker, a
secondary striker, or a winger. He has a different attitude from
Torres like that.
"Torres is a fantastic striker and it was difficult for
Liverpool to sell him because he's such an important player for
them, but we got Balotelli instead and this is good for us because
he has everything you need to score a goal.
"He's quick, strong in the air, good technique, young; he has
everything you need to be the best, and I think he is going to be
more suited to the Premier
League than the Italian championship. The defenders here do
not know much about him, but they will see he can change everything
about a game. He's very similar to [Carlos] Tevez like that."
Balotelli marked his debut by scoring the winner, as a
second-half substitute, as City beat Timisoara in the first leg of
their Europa League qualifier on Thursday. The 20-year-old picked
up a knee injury but is confident of being involved against Roy
Hodgson's side.
"In my view, there are eight or nine fantastic strikers in the
world," Mancini said. "Torres and Balotelli are two of them, then
there's [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic, [Cristiano] Ronaldo, Tevez, [Lionel]
Messi. They're all fantastic players and we've managed to sign one
of them, so we're very happy. Trying to sign players like that is
very difficult because we're talking about fantastic
footballers.
"I gave Mario his debut for Inter when he was 17 and I saw then
that he can handle the pressure and expectation. I put him in the
team for the last five games of Serie A, because we had Ibrahimovic
injured, and he played like someone of 30 years."