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Liverpool's friendly against AC Milan during the Champions Cup carried with it plenty of speculation that Brendan Rodgers had interest in signing Mario Balotelli, whom he'd praised as a terrific, terrific talent, a world class operator, and a wonderful young lad. That's paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to find the link to the actual quotes, but as far as Rodgers Praise™ goes, that's pretty much what he said. So he walked those comments back by "categorically" ruling out a move for the Italian striker, and today he's doing more walking back, only this is in the direction of the original speculation or something.
From his press conference earlier in the day, in which he also announced the availability of Lazar Markovic and Alberto Moreno for Monday:
"I can categorically tell you that I can't speak about it until the player is signed. We always said we were working for another striker. If we can do a deal for anyone we will.
"Every club will have a code of conduct. We have a fantastic environment and a great culture. Nothing will ever shake that."
That seems like banter in an enjoyable way, and not banter in a way that excuses racism, sexism, and/or homophobia. None of us should be saying banter anyway, though, and we're better left to focus on the fact that now Sky Sports is reporting that Balotelli has arrived in Liverpool for his medical ahead of a completing the deal in the coming days. An official announcement isn't on the immediate horizon, but it's coming soon, and Liverpool will soon have a deal done for the striker they've been after for most of the last three days.
He is, after all, at Melwood for his medical, something we can say categorically:
five times this appeared on my timeline so far pic.twitter.com/oTgCL3CdcF
— lenikdot (@lenikdot) August 22, 2014
