Jamie Redknapp once fumed with Brendan Rodgers for thinking he could do something Jose Mourinho couldn't at Liverpool
03/21/2025 01:00 PM
The Brendan Rodgers era at Liverpool was very up and down.
The Northern Irish coach had incredible success during his second season at Anfield as the Reds went very close to the Premier League title during the 2013/14 campaign. However, that came in between two tough years for the Merseyside club, which were a real struggled for all involved.
Rodgers lost Luis Suarez during the summer of 2014 and that already got the 14/15 campaign off to a difficult start for the Reds boss as Steven Gerrard hoped Liverpool would kick on after the season before.
The Uruguayan was always going to be impossible to replace but that task was failed miserably by the Merseyside club.
One decision resulted in Jamie Redknapp going on a passionate rant during the season as the pundit could not make sense of what Rodgers was thinking.
Jame Redknapp’s passionate Mario Balotelli rant
With Suarez gone, Liverpool decided to bring Mario Balotelli to Anfield as part of a £16m deal with AC Milan.
Balotelli couldn’t believe how Liverpool fans received him upon his arrival after years of playing against the Reds fans with Man City, but the supporters at the time thought that their club could help change the chaotic ways of the Italian striker.
However, that was not to be as the forward flopped at Liverpool and after a 3-0 defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League in 2014, the performance of Balotelli set Redknapp into a rant.
“I don't blame Mario Balotelli. I blame Brendan Rodgers for bringing him here,” Redknapp said on Sky Sports. “How he thought that he could turn around the player that Mourinho, Mancini, Prandelli have all washed their hands with.
“There’s a reason when you go to the supermarket and things are half price, Jeff. Why on earth they went for him I’ll never know. They should have just left him alone.
“Even if Brendan Rodgers said ‘You know what, I’m going to stick with Ricky Lambert and keep Borini’, then you got Sturridge. Just stick with that. The fact that you went and got him, it just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Mario Balotelli’s 2014/15 season at Liverpool
Looking back, Liverpool’s move for Balotelli was very ambitious, to say the least. The Italian striker was never going to fit in at the Merseyside club, however, Rodgers was desperate as the former Reds boss was very short of attacking options having lost Suarez.
The sole blame could not be placed on Rodgers as many people would have been involved in the decision but Redknapp was right in saying the Premier League giants should have just left him alone.
Balotelli would contribute very little to Liverpool’s season as Rodgers lost faith in the Italian very quickly with the striker barely playing during the second half of the campaign.
| Competition | Games | Goals | Assists |
| Premier League | 16 | 1 | 0 |
| FA Cup | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| League Cup | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Champions League | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Europa League | 2 | 1 | 0 |
With 27 games left in the Premier League season, the former Man City striker would feature in just seven of them, scoring just one goal for the Reds.
The signing of Balotelli will go down as one of the worst in Liverpool’s history but lucky for them, the £16m man did not cost them a fortune.
