With Mario Balotelli seemingly edging closer to a move to Manchester City, the Daily Telegraph have done a good assessment of his career to date.

Written by Ian Chadband, Balotelli is painted as a bad boy teenager with bags of talent.

There was a time when it would have been a badge of shame for Italian football to let their best young striker be sent to a finishing school in England. But then the Italian game never has known quite how to cope with the explosive cultural, political and sporting phenomenon that is Mario Balotelli.

So now it appears after being worn down by the years of controversy, they are perfectly content to pass on their problem child to another league where, if you believed in all the advance hot-headed notices, the Premier League can soon enjoy the cartoon sights of ‘Super Mario’ fighting with his team-mates, descending into petulance and simulation, disrespecting the shirt, shirking training and generally being a pain in the neck and impossible to handle.

The popular belief is that not even Jose Mourinho’s magic touch was able to tame Balotelli. Indeed, as a last resort to try to get him onside, the Portuguese tried an exasperated public rant at Inter, protesting: “Nothing has changed. Neither the way Balotelli works nor his attitude. His effort in training is 25 per cent; if it was at 50 per cent he would be one of the best players in the world.

“I don’t like the atmosphere he is bringing to the team and the way he works during the week. It’s not the right attitude for a young player. He lacks concentration and motivation. He must change.”

Yet here is the thing. Just like Roberto Mancini before him, Mourinho never gave up on Balotelli. He kept trying (and half-succeeding), right to the end of his reign, to discipline, cajole and encourage him. Why? Because both coaches worked closely enough with him to catch a glimpse in embryonic form of one of the best footballers in the world.

Balotelli does not have an attitude problem, reckons Mancini. He has a youth problem. He does not even emerge from his teens until next month.

“When you are young, you make mistakes. That is true of all of us. I do not think Mario is a hard player to work with. I think he is a fantastic player,” he says. “And why do you think he is talked about so much? Because it’s hard not to talk about a great player.”