Rodgers admits Balotelli's 16 mln pounds move to Liverpool from Milan has backfired

Liverpool football team manager Brendan Rodgers has admitted that Italian striker Mario Balotelli's 16 million pounds move from AC Milan was a gamble that has backfired spectacularly, as the former Manchester City star has scored just twice in all season.

Rodgers has accepted that there is no way out of Liverpool for Balotelli. He wants to ditch the controversial Italian striker, just three months after he offered Balotelli the chance to resurrect his career in the Premier League.

Balotelli's move to Liverpool from Milan has backfired, but it's a risk Rodgers must persevere with until the end of the season, as Liverpool have already given up on offloading the striker in the January transfer window, The Mirror reported.

Rodgers said that as a club Liverpool felt that buying Balotelli was the solution at the time, adding that in the summer, they had Rickie Lambert, but Fabio Borini looked sure to leave and Daniel Sturridge displayed in his career so far that he gets injuries.

The manager claimed that to go into the season with no one else would have been very difficult for them, admitting that it would have been unfair to leave Lambert, as the only other striker that they had.

He claimed that he felt it was a risk they needed to take with Balotelli because, as a group, Liverpool couldn't afford not to have a striker that time.

Rodgers claimed that it's something that they can't regret now, adding that he made it clear at the beginning it was a calculated risk and that is why the striker probably cost the money he did.

Balotelli, who is currently sidelined by a mystery groin strain, is yet to re-open his goalscoring account in the Premier League.

The Italian vowed to clean up his behaviour off the pitch when he arrived from Inter, but his attitude has shown little improvement since he was shown the door by City in January 2013, the report added.