An incident involving Gaël Clichy was the last straw for Mario Balotelli at Manchester City, former manager Roberto Mancini has revealed.
Balotelli left City on loan in January 2013 before making his move to AC Milan permanent that summer, but it was an incident earlier in that season which spelled the end for the Italian.
Clichy, who joined the club one year after Balotelli, was recovering from an injury, prompting Mancini to urge the French defender’s teammates to take it easy on him in training.
And, according to comments made by the manager to L’Équipe, Balotelli did not heed that advice.
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
“In a training session, I said to players not to make stupid tackles on Gaël [Clichy] because he was just coming back from injury,” Mancini told the French paper, as translated by Sky Sports.
“And then, Mario made a strong tackle on him. I was furious.
“I grabbed him by the collar wanting to push him but he is so strong physically I couldn’t move him.
“From seeing the pictures, you would think that we came to blows but nothing happened.”
Overnight there's been trouble @ Man City, Manager Roberto Mancini was in a mid-training punch up with Mario Balotelli pic.twitter.com/2MkNvAAM
— The SportingJournal (@SportingJournl) January 3, 2013
Balotelli is now playing for Nice in Ligue 1, where he has scored six goals in his first five games. His last appearance, against Lorient, saw him score a late winner before being sent off for picking up two yellow cards in the space of five minutes.
