Buy a ticket for the Mario Balotelli opera. The best new show in Manchester motored down to London's East End and treated the West Ham audience to a repertoire of tantrums, truculence and flashes of talent as Manchester City moved joint top on points in the Premier League with Arsenal.

Sporting his Travis Bickle mohican, Balotteli wakes up angry and stays that way. His face radiates youthful fury. Maybe he came to London to join the student protests but ended up at Upton Park instead. Replaced on 60 minutes, moments after being booked for dissent, he shot straight down the tunnel without acknowledging his mentor/manager, Roberto Mancini, to chants from the home crowd of "what a waste of money".

He is not that, yet, but neither is he likely to be made shop steward in the City dressing room. He is the most extreme individualist to come to these isles for many years. When Yaya Touré struck City's first goal, a huddle of nine outfield players celebrated around the scorer. On the edge of the frame, Balotelli walked back to the centre circle alone. A late change of heart sent him over to Touré to say something, but by then his lone wolf tendencies were already apparent.

For all the wrong reasons – and occasionally the right ones – Balotelli is mesmerising: a Gareth Barry cross is intercepted by a West Ham defender and manic Mario punches a goalpost in front of the Bobby Moore Stand; Matthew Upson pulls him down and he takes a tug at the England centre‑half's leg as they both rise; a refereeing decision goes against him and he throws his arms as if trying to shake them from their sockets.

To any card-carrying defender he is just pleading to be provoked. All they need to do is take out a stick and poke the hive. Once Balotelli said: "Sometimes my head leads me astray. I once tried to correct my behaviour. I tried for two or three weeks but couldn't take it. I got bored. I am a boy, not a grown man."

An "outrageously talented Italian forward" is how the West Ham programme described him. So far he is stuck at the "outrageous" part. Against Wolves he was kicked on the knee after 10 minutes and went looking for a rumble. Against West Brom he drew his first red card in England. As for the "talent", Brian Kidd, City's assistant manager, said: "He is a great kid. He works so hard in training. You're going to be under the microscope in the Premier League."

At any other club Mancini would stand or fall by the gamble he took in buying this irascible 20-year-old from Internazionale for £24m in August. But with City now higher than Manchester United in the table, Balotelli's irritability can be hidden behind other evidence of progress.

There is plenty of that. In the past two weeks the Abu Dhabi constellation have advanced beyond merely being hard to beat to something more expressive. Mancini will probably say it was part of his master plan to open the gate around now and allow his most creative players some fun. With such rich owners to please – and a crushing wage bill to justify – many managers would have caved in before now to grandstand pressure to raise the entertainment quota.

Enough positivity has been injected to bring David Silva back to life and liberate Yaya Touré from defensive midfield duties. But the angriest 20-year-old in the north-west will remain a sideshow until he masters the volatility José Mourinho took such exception to in Milan. Students of eccentricity will flock to watch him, but Mancini runs the risk of finishing games with 10 men or alienating players such as Emmanuel Adebayor and Adam Johnson if he picks Balotelli ahead of them.

Against the worst team in the league the young Inter discard kept Johnson on the bench and started at centre-forward as Jô and David Silva worked the flanks. This 3–1 victory proved City can thrive without the suspended Carlos Tevez, who has toiled away up front alone. It also confirmed the impossibility of relying on Balotelli to be Tevez's main understudy.

From the moment Balotelli touched down he has been a cabaret. On a symbolic day of table-climbing for his club he treated every incoming tackle as a personal affront. Not until the Football Association erect a special exclusion zone around him will he be entirely happy with the concept of football as a contact sport.

Kidd claimed he was taken off because "the manager was looking for a bit more thrust down the sides". But several times Mancini had ordered Balotelli to rush across to block off West Ham counter-surges and each time he had been ignored. When referee Phil Dowd drew his yellow card in response to another spasm of thrashing arms, City raised No45 on the electronic board and Balotelli headed straight for the dressing room.

It was a good sign, City fans will feel, that the other 10 players could carry such a thespian for an hour and still win convincingly. Yaya Touré tried a couple of times to coach him but Balotelli appears to be troubled both by some sort of persecution complex and a generalised anger that attaches itself to the most innocuous events. What's eating Mario? What does he have to be so livid about? City had a ball here, but he was not joining in.