Poor Mario Gomez. It's been a rough few years for the sometimes German international, having gone from some of the highest highs (nearly winning the Golden Boot at Euro 2012, historic treble winner with Bayern Munich in 2013) to the lowest lows (multiple injuries that caused him to miss out on not just most of the 2013/14 season, but also Germany lifting the World Cup for the fourth time) since moving to Fiorentina two years ago.
It's a move that hasn't exactly gone as planned. The injuries sustained during his first season in Italy prevented him from ever really making a mark on the side — he made only nine appearances in the league that year — and his sophmore season, while marginally improved injury wise, still resulted in a few months spent in the physio room and a run-in that saw the striker benched for six of the last eight matches in Serie A despite being fit.
Naturally, Gomez is looking for a move elsewhere that can guarantee him more playing time and, perhaps even more naturally given the type of striker Liverpool actually need, Gomez — who is not the type of striker Liverpool need — has been linked with a move to Merseyside by Italian outlet Tuttomercatoweb. The Italian news source's logic is that though he'd prefer a move to Monaco, Gomez could be a target for Liverpool should the club decide to offload Mario Balotelli somewhere.
Swapping one Mario for another certainly brings a nice symmetry to the rumour, where a player hoping for a chance at more playing time in a system he doesn't really fit would take the place of a player who couldn't get much playing time because of a system he doesn't really fit. But beyond the idea that Gomez would likely be a poor fit tactically, he's a player who turns thirty next week and who has a questionable injury history in recent seasons that just does not seem to correlate with anything else Liverpool is attempting to accomplish in this window.
File under "Probs Not" and use this as an excuse to press the Mario Gomez button.