Mario Balotelli rocked English football to its very foundations as he stormed to a 3-0 win at Tottenham Hotspur yesterday, it is emerging.

The maverick Italian is of course the only footballer ever to be called Mario, at least if you believe the tedious stream of vintage platform game references spewed by our ever-bereft-of-ideas press.

Honestly, it’s like Mario Melchiot never happened.

As it was, as it proved to be – and so it turned out – Balotelli was a one-man wrecking machine as he spurred Liverpool on to the spurring victory at Spurs, pretty much doing it all by himself I don’t know if you saw it but that’s definitely the story because that’s exactly what happened and you can’t prove otherwise.

Speaking exclusively to Football Burp, Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling glared indignantly at this morning’s sports headlines before thrusting them in our faces.

They chorused: “Look at all this rubbish being written.

“Do they even care about us any more? We’re in the England team for crying out loud, even if that doesn’t sound as impressive as it used to.

“We won 5-0 at White Hart Lane last season, so if anything Mario’s presence actually dialled our effectiveness down a couple of notches.

“And yet here he is getting all the credit. Is it going to be like this until such a time as he gets sent off for punching one of us for not passing to him?

“Because mark our words, that’s what’ll bloody happen.”

Balotelli was unavailable for comment as he was busy strapping jet packs to nuns for reasons not yet stated.