Nedum Onuoha has said that Mario Balotelli told him he regrets leaving Manchester City as early as he did.
Despite only sharing the pitch with Balotelli on one occasion, which came in third-round League Cup game against Birmingham City back in the 2011/12 season, the former City defender has shared some details regarding the Italian.
Speaking in a recent edition of the Football Social Daily podcast, Onuoha said this about Balotelli and his time at the Etihad Stadium.
He said: “In terms of Mario and success, relatively speaking, he was still one of the most consequential players of that era and he’s adored by the City fans because he’s different.
“But he was a 19-year-old Italian with a maturity level, at the time, that was younger than his age, coming into a team full of seasoned professionals who were so driven and so specifically thinking about winning a Premier League title, that understood the full gravity of what that would mean.
“You’re looking at Gareth Barry, Vincent Kompany, Nigel De Jong, all this stuff, Mario was a great player but he’s not them from a professional standpoint, [James] Milner as well.
“So, I don’t think it was as easy for him to fit in. But Mario today is more like what those players were like then. If he would have been able to be more mature in that moment, I think he says for longer.
“I spoke with Mario last year or the year before and he said that was one of his biggest regrets that he left early because he looks back at the players that City signed in like [Sergio] Aguero, [Carlos] Tevez and so on and so forth and he sees how they’re loved by the football club and he wishes that could have been him.
“Of all the years that he’s played and the places he’s been, he regrets leaving City as early as he did and the way that he did.”
Balotelli’s eye-catching time at City
The Citizens signed Balotelli back in 2010 from Inter Milan for a reported fee of £24m and then went on to see the striker score 30 goals in 80 appearances before he left in January 2013 to join AC Milan.
Back in 2016, Roberto Mancini revealed that the reason the centre-forward left the club in 2013 because he fell out with his teammates at the time.
Now that Onuoha said Balotelli told him he regrets leaving City in the manner he did, this highlights the maturity he has now which he may not have had in his early days at the club.
Despite that, the Italian will always hold a place in City’s history by delivering the assist for Aguero’s famous injury-time winner against Queens Park Rangers in the final Premier League game of the 2011/12 season.
