No, that’s not the Dow Jones or the FTSE 100. It’s the declining worth of Mario Balotelli (courtesy Transfermarkt).

The return of the prodigal. AC Milan comes to the rescue once again for the player cast aside by Brendan Rodgers and Liverpool. Super Mario is off on a year long loan move with Milan picking up the tab. Which means there is no chance of him coming back to Anfield. The Milan club also took him off Roberto Mancini’s hands while at City, where he actually scored goals (20 in 54 appearances) and maintained that goalscoring streak with 26 goals in 43 appearances in the Serie.

To be fair, he was never given much of a chance at Liverpool. Rodgers is too much of a management maven with little of the social fabric to understand and nurture someone like Balotelli. And so he was always going to be a fish out of water. With his return to his boyhood club, Balotelli might once again find his goalscoring touch in an environment more conducive to his idiosyncrasies and self immolating flamboyance.