john68 wrote:I think with young Balotelli, we should look at the difference between rational and emotional.
When in rational mode, he is undoubtedly a quality footballer and probably quite a nice young lad. Now the red mist has vapourised, i am not suprised that he is full of remorse. Now that his heart rate has settled and he can look at his behaviour in the cold light of day, he understands he has behaved like a twat and possibly it was his actions that cost us the game and our place in the Europa League next round.
The problem he has is his lack of ability to stop the red mist descending, his lack of ability to keep his head when the pressure is on. Sadly for him and possibly his future career, the game at the top is about pressure, stress, tension and how well you can handle it.
There is much talk about him learning lessons but learning is all about rationality. he loses it emotionally and learning plays no part of that. his reactions are not rational they are emotional and thought has no control over them. I have deep worries that it is something in his personality that is hard wired and deep seated.
The fact that even after the game, even after being told by the club and his own team mates, despite his being remorseful and regretful in the dressinfg room and despite having the understanding about the implications of his actions, HE STILL COULDN'T STOP HIMSELF REACTING EMOTIONALLY TO A FEW FANS. HE HAS NO CONTROL OF THAT SIDE OF HIS CHARACTER.
carl_feedthegoat wrote:Like I said..he fucking cost us the match and a possible EUFA cup to boot.
Hes a cunt and he wont change....as has been said..the sill fucker got out of his car to remonstrate with fans.
UNBELIEVABLE.
John I agree with the above post of yours entirely. I also don't disagree with Carl's.
The thing I think we need to understand is what John says. He clearly has no control over his emotional management/impulse control and it is 100% part of his character. This will always blight his career until something is done to help deal with it.
CARL: what gets me about your reaction towards him is that (I'm sure I can't be alone) I can so see a parallel between Mario's on field reactions and your online reactions (and this tallies with tales you have told about how difficult you can be to deal with after, say, a City loss). I don't know what you are like in person these days and you may have mellowed but I wouldn't be surprised at all if you told me that you, especially when younger, had a very short fuse.
I say this as I know that I absolutely do suffer from exactly the same types of issue with "red mist" as Mario. I really do wish that I could turn the other cheek and walk away like most people can but, quite simply, I cannot. Once I have tipped over the edge I, quite frankly, am impossible to control/reason with and am a fucking nightmare. Just like Mario, afterwards I am remorseful and feel usually hugely guilty but that does not change the fact that I quite frequently will lose it.
I have mellowed as I have got older and have also "done some work" on the issue to try and understand and control it myself but I can tell you that even after that I have a massively shorter fuse than pretty much anyone I know.
Expecting Mario to "sort it out" himself is just pie in the sky. It simply is not going to happen. Yes he does have "issues" but unless he gets some assistance in dealing with those issues (which are entirely in his head) then nothing will change.
Mario does not have "anger management issues" a la Joey Barton. He is not inherently a scumbag who likes to hurt people as I believe Barton to be. He just cannot control the way he reacts to perceived injustice (be it poor refereeing, fouls going unpunished, racist abuse from fans or his own fans on his back) and that won't change unless he is assisted in dealing with his emotional reaction.
What I do hope, as a consequence of all of this, is that the club has the necessary leverage to make him start to work with people to help him dial his reactions down. The reactions will never go away but he is capable of getting to a point where they are more capable of being regulated.
I'm sure I cannot be alone on here in being capable of relating to Balotelli in this regard. I'm not expecting people to forgive him when he does stuff like that, I'm not expecting anyone to forget it. But I'm sure that there will be other posters who can see some of their own emotional personality in his.
....and I still like him
