Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel feels sorry for Mario Balotelli as the striker’s struggles continue.
Balotelli has still not scored in the Barclays Premier League since joining the Reds in a £16 million (Dh94m) deal in August.
His luckless run continued as Hull frustrated the Merseysiders to claim a goalless draw in the Premier League on Saturday.
Balotelli was far from the worst player on the pitch, producing a committed display which offered encouragement after some of his heavily criticised efforts of recent weeks. But coming after the controversy of midweek, when he was seen swapping shirts at half-time of the 3-0 loss to Real Madrid, the spotlight was on him.
That meant his lack of goals was again highlighted and the spurned stoppage-time chance, when Eldin Jakupovic denied him at point-blank range, commanded a lot of headlines. A bookmaker has also ridiculed Balotelli’s lack of output, offering fans outside the ground the chance to trade in shirts bearing his names for different ones in a publicity stunt.
But Skrtel came to the Italian’s defence, saying: “He is working hard and showed some good moments. I feel sorry for him.
“He is working hard in training, he is working hard in the game. He just hasn’t got the goals. We just believe in him. We will be supporting him and just hope he will start scoring goals.”
Liverpool’s performance was patchy, but they had some good spells, notably in the first and last 15 minutes, and Balotelli was at the fore. He brought a good early save from Hull’s third-choice goalkeeper Jakupovic, took up good positions, worked hard off the ball and had a penalty appeal turned down.
He almost settled the game in dramatic circumstances in the fourth minute of injury time when he got on the end of a Philippe Coutinho cross but Jakupovic blocked. Coutinho himself was denied by Jakupovic moments earlier and Raheem Sterling shot wide. Steven Gerrard and Dejan Lovren also had good chances.
Hull’s best spell came in the latter stages of the first half when Jake Livermore, Mohamed Diame and Tom Huddlestone had chances.
It was another frustrating result for Liverpool, who have won just four of their nine games and Skrtel added: “It is normal when you are conceding goals that the back four and the keeper will always be the first to be blamed. We fixed it, we got a clean sheet, but we couldn’t get the three points, so that’s not good enough.
“I would have preferred to win 5-4 and get three points than draw 0-0 and get a point.”
