The beautiful game will always need its artists. Those individuals who can create magic at a moment's notice, with little inspiration.

For every orchestral Barcelona performance, wholly supported by a Messi underscore there must be raucous heavy metal or attitude filled hip-hop.For every Ronaldo dribble as crystal clear as the Bain à la Grenouillère imaged from afar, there must be a Jackson Pollock-like disaster piece, wreaking havoc in the name of 'Be More Zlatan'. For every Starman, reaching into the sky - there must be an unhinged Cobain, Waits or Hendrix.

Mario Balotelli should be in a position where he can be considered alongside those greats.

The attitude driven goal-scoring ability of the reckless hot-blooded Italian star is quite rare. Not many people in football run their mouths, but when someone does and lives up to their own hype? There's simply nothing like it. From the moment he put the world on notice with 'Why Always Me?", to now - Mario Balotelli is someone who should be achieving so much more than he is. A blockbuster opening paragraph crumbling under the foundations of a boring prose.

Mario Balotelli having a dry spell' of around two years isn't just bad for Liverpool or Milan, it's bad for football. As many squeaky clean stars as there are right now, interest in the game seems to surge when someone like Mario or Zlatan is playing at their very best. Sometimes, it's not all about the heroes, but the almost-villain, with just the faintest streak of darkness in his own ability. The true entertainers of the game are the ones who are flawed in the same sense us normal people are, we can't control our emotions and we speak, often without filter - perhaps Mario reflects that in us? Unfortunately, football needs Balotelli to keep succeeding and that might just not be his destiny going forward.

Victim of his own mouth? Not at all, Mario has the clear ability to succeed in the Serie A, as he has proved. Unfortunately, he's chalking himself up alongside Jeremy Menez as another of Milan's problems, and not a problem in the 'good' sense.