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Liverpool FC striker Mario Balotelli believes Brendan Rodgers will help him to realise his rich potential as he looks to spearhead a Premier League title challenge.

The Italy international has endured a difficult start to his Anfield career with just one goal in eight appearances following his £16million move from AC Milan.

However, Balotelli has vowed to knuckle down and prove he can adapt to the Reds’ style of play. He has promised to take on board Rodgers’ demands about increasing his contribution to the side and is eyeing a first league goal for the club at Queens Park Rangers on Sunday.

Asked about playing under Rodgers, Balotelli said: “He is very good, a strong character, and I think that comes out in the way the team plays.

“I think he can help me improve as a player. He is very open, everybody can talk to him, but first he looks at the person, and second he looks at the footballer. With Brendan, you need to be a good person – you don’t have to be, how do you say it, a d***head.

“I need to get in the box more. I don’t do it enough, but it is something I am working to try to do more. I have never been a real, out-and-out striker – I have always been someone who goes around the pitch, you know?

“If it was my choice, I would always go with two strikers. It’s the way I like to play, but Brendan asked me to play as the first striker. I understand that when the ball comes from wide on the left or right, I need to be in the box otherwise there might be no-one there at all.

“I can see already that the Liverpool fans really like me, although I know that maybe they are a little upset because I don’t score. I see they appreciate that I am working hard, though, which is nice for me.

“I know I have one goal in the Champions League, but in the Premier League I have to start with one. After that, I might set myself a target, but I swear right now my first league goal is my first and only objective.”

Balotelli says he has been impressed by the calibre of his new team-mates, especially long-serving skipper Steven Gerrard.

“Gerrard he is an amazing player,” he told Sport magazine.

“I had really not seen much of him before this season, apart from for England, but wow. I think of him as being at the same level as (Andrea) Pirlo. Vision, technique, but he is powerful as well. Stevie can do anything. It’s going to be very difficult for the team to find another player like him in the future.”

“I didn’t really know much about the club before coming here, but I’ve been really surprised.

“I knew they were a very good team, but I didn’t know they were as good as they are. Of course we need to improve many things because we have started off not very good, but I think the players here are amazing.

“It’s good to see young English players here too: Sterling, Henderson, Lallana. I think the more players you have like this, the better. Maybe over time you have got used to not seeing so many good young English players like that, but now we are seeing some. It’s good that they are in my team.”

Liverpool sit ninth in the table after only picking up 10 points from seven league matches but Balotelli is convinced they will start to find some consistency.

“You ask me if I think we can finish in the top four, I hope so,” he said.

“But I am focused and I want to work on us winning the league, not coming in the first four places.

“No-one is in this competition to try and lose it, everybody plays to win, and I think Chelsea and Man City are the teams we need to aim for.

“We have to give our best, and whatever happens will happen, but I hope we can come very close to the Premier League title.”

Balotelli is hoping his club form will help him fight his way back into the Italy squad after being overlooked by new coach Antonio Conte.

“I understand why I am not in the squad,” he said.

“I haven’t been scoring, but other players like (Graziano) Pelle and the other strikers have been. So they deserve to be there, but I love Italy and nobody can ever say anything about my national team.

“I will always love it, but I have to be honest and say I was disappointed at what people were saying and how they were blaming me after the World Cup.

“I think I had two, maybe three chances in all the tournament. Everyone knows I scored against England, but I couldn’t do much else.

“Even (former Italy boss) Cesare Prandelli has said bad stuff about me. Should he be going and talking to the newspapers about me straight after a game?

“I did not expect that and I did not reply because there is no point. I think real men, if they have something to say, then they come to you and say it to your face. I am a face-to-face person, a straight person.”

Balotelli, who endured a difficult childhood growing up in Italy, also spoke about his love of children and animals.

“Every morning, when I wake up, I think that maybe yesterday people were speaking bad things about me but then I see kids coming up to me and I think I’m not doing that bad,” he said.

“I could do better, of course, I could do way better – but kids are natural, they are honest. If they look at you and don’t like you, they don’t come up to you.

“So if I see them always coming up to me, then it means I can’t be that bad, either as a footballer or a person.

“When kids stop asking for my autograph or a picture or whatever, then maybe I will start to think that I need to change something about myself. This is why I love kids. And dogs.”

Asked about his labrador-pitbull cross Lucky, who lives in Italy with Balotelli’s foster parents and his other dog, a rottweiler called Tyson, he added: “If I say kiss, then she kisses me.

“Of course I miss my family and friends in Italy. But when I go back, I spend hours talking with my parents. Then I visit my friends and we do normal stuff – you know, playing PlayStation and ping pong. Then I pick up my dogs and we go for a walk.

“They are really clever, my dogs. Lucky is unbelievable – when you look into her face, it is like you are with a real person. When I speak, she listens. I only have to say things one time. If I ask her for her paw, she gives it to me. I ask her to sit, she sits; I say she can run, she runs. Everything I ask her to do, she does.”

Balotelli’s previous spell in England with Manchester City was dogged by off-field controversies such as when an incident with fireworks led to a blaze in his bathroom.

Now living in Formby, he insists he only wants to make headlines for what he does with a ball at his feet.

“I have done mistakes in the past, like everybody did when they were young,” he said.

“And the firework thing did happen, but it wasn’t me who let it off. I know England is like this, though, so it’s okay. It’s a shame, sure, but I get used to it – the newspapers are always trying to give an image of Mario that is bad, printing things that aren’t true.

“Off the pitch, really I don’t have any problems because I am always home. When people speak bad about me, it’s only because they listen to the media and read what the newspapers say. They maybe lose a little bit of focus on my football, so everybody thinks I am famous for what happens outside the pitch.

“Someone told me recently that I had apparently said that if I have sex three or four hours before a game, it is working for me on the pitch. Trust me, if I am having sex four hours before a game I am not able to play. I don’t think anyone could. It makes me laugh, but this is not me.

“I am only focused on football. I live out in the countryside, I am relaxed and I just hope the time that I’m going to score is coming soon. Then maybe they will concentrate more on football and not all the other bull****.”