There was a lot of attention last week on Mario Balotelli as the luckless striker finally broke his Liverpool duck.

Considering it has taken him nearly half a year to open his league account, it’s hardly surprising the Italian’s close-range winner against Tottenham Hotspur made the headlines.

Now he’s beaten the jinx he could go on a roll and there is every chance that by the end of the season he might have amassed another two or three.

However, for me, the more interesting thing about Liverpool beating Spurs is that it threw up a rather interesting statistic – if the Premier League season had started on Boxing Day then Liverpool would be top of the table.

Generally speaking, of course, statistics like that don’t mean very much. You can pretty much make them up to fit any argument you like. If the season had finished after the opening day then Manchester United would have been relegated, for example. Utterly irrelevant in real life, but fun to play around with.

But the Boxing Day statistic, however flawed, does show just how this has been a season of two halves for Brendan Rodgers’ side. At first they struggled to cope with the loss of Luis Suarez, the injury to Daniel Sturridge and having so many new faces in the squad. There were even times when it looked like Rodgers might not see out the season.

Now it would appear most of those problems are behind them with the new players starting to gel, Sturridge back from injury and even Balotelli remembering that his job is, allegedly, scoring goals.

In fact, Liverpool have only dropped four points of the 24 available since December 26, and that is, by anyone’s standards, the sort of form that makes other teams sit up and take notice.

I still suspect Liverpool will struggle to break into the top four this season. They are going to need one or two of the other contenders to go on a bad run while they maintain their own form.

But it is not entirely impossible, especially if they can do what they did last Tuesday, which is beating a team that is also fighting for a golden ticket to the Champions League.

Even if they do miss out on a top four finish this season, I think we are seeing a new Liverpool beginning to emerge. And this time it is not based around the brilliance of one individual player.

...and this time it is not based around the brilliance of one individual player

On that basis don’t rule out a proper title challenge in 2015-16… with Balotelli’s four-goal season leading the charge.

Great Scot! Not any more…

Once upon a time Scottish football managers were the ‘in thing’.

At one stage, just a couple of years ago in fact, there were no less than seven Scots in charge of Premier League teams – a staggering 35 per cent of top-flight bosses.

Led by the imperious Sir Alex Ferguson, the group also included the likes of Kenny Dalglish, David Moyes and Alex McLeish. Not only was it trendy to have a Scottish manager, in general terms it was productive, as they were pretty good at the job.

But times have changed quite dramatically. Paul Lambert’s sacking by Aston Villa last Wednesday means there is now not a single managerial Scot in sight.

So can we read anything into this? Probably not.

That Scottish invasion was probably down to two things – firstly the influence of Sir Alex. I am sure no chairman would publicly admit it, but Manchester United’s incredible success under Ferguson will have had some influence on their decision-making process.

The second factor is that there just happened to be a good crop of decent Scottish managers in the right place at the right time back then.

Most things in football are cyclical and managerial nationality is apparently no exception.

As for Lambert’s sacking, well, to be honest it was probably one of the most inevitable in the game’s history.

Their defeat last Tuesday dropped them into the relegation places, which is enough to cause panic in the most supportive of boardrooms.

Couple that with the fact that Villa have only scored 12 goals all season and it’s not hard to see why he had to go. Even more so when you take into account the supporters wanted him out too.

Joey’s magnificent seven

After spending the greater part of his career annoying players, managers and the public, Joey Barton can finally tick something off his bucket list – breaking a Premiership record.

Last Tuesday night the Queens Park Rangers player got a yellow card that made him the first player in the history of the Premiership to be booked in seven consecutive games.

Probably not the record he wanted, but nevertheless something to tell the grandchildren.

And don’t bet against him stretching it to eight…

Really unfair on Ronaldo

Apparently Real Madrid fans were unhappy that just hours after their crushing 4-0 defeat to local rivals Atletico Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo was celebrating his 30th birthday at a posh nightspot surrounded by hundreds of colleagues, family and friends.

Now I’m not one to stick up for footballers. I don’t particularly like them as a breed.

But for Ronaldo to ‘incur the wrath’ of Real fans for celebrating his birthday is ludicrous.

I’m fairly sure he would rather have had his party on the back of 4-0 win, instead of a derby defeat. But what was he supposed to do, cancel the whole thing? Or maybe he shouldn’t have a personal life at all until he retires, just in case it clashes with a poor result?

It was unfortunate timing, admittedly, but that should be the end of the story.

Then again, I don’t suppose Ronaldo has done very much for Real over the years has he…?

Your say

“I read your article ‘Deadline day doldrums?’ (February 1) and would like to comment regarding the section on ‘People in glass houses’.

“You omitted the fact that Suarez had to pay bitterly for each time he crossed the line. Can you imagine what his punishment would have been if he had done the same thing Diego Costa did?

“Definitely not a mere three-match ban! You can bet your sweet life he would have been fined a hefty sum and banned for six to eight games.

“The FA was never soft on Suarez in their judgments and always heavily penalised him. And rightly so, those are not antics one wants to see in a game of football. But what irked Liverpool fans was the fact that Costa got away with his stamping and also losing his cool with Steven Gerrard (and that’s saying something) and the ref turned a blind eye (or didn’t see both stampings, to give him the benefit of the doubt).

“It was a case of two weights and two measures whenever the culprit happened to be Suarez.

“I usually agree with everything you write on Sundays, but this time I feel you were very quick to label Liverpool fans as suffering from amnesia. You were not fair in your conclusions.” Dorothy Piccinino, e-mail.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade