Brendan Rodgers has explained why he has sent Fabio Borini to Sunderland.
In what was a busy deadline day in the red half of Merseyside, the Liverpool boss added Tiago Iloris, Victor Moses and Mamadou Sakho to his squad. He also bid farewell, albeit temporarily, to Italian Borini, who he only signed last summer for £11million but has now allowed to spend the current campaign on loan at the Stadium of Light.
Rodgers has explained that the primary reason for allowing the former Chelsea and Swansea City youngster to make the move is simply to allow him more chance of regular first team football. And after his debut season at Anfield was interrupted by injury, he is confident that given a run of games, Borini can prove his Premier League class.
“It’s just to get games,” said Rodgers. “He had a stop-start season last year with his injuries and I just felt this year he needed to go and play football. With Daniel Sturridge, Luis Suarez, Iago Aspas, that might have been limited. I have a real belief in Fabio – he is a talent and we’ve seen that on occasions, but he needs to be playing regularly.
“We had a host of clubs wanting to take him, but with Sunderland having the Italian connection there and being a big club where he can go and play, I’m sure he’ll get the chance to shine and we’ll look closely at his development this year.”
Borini, 22, becomes Paolo Di Canio’s 14th signing since the end of last season, following Modibo Diakite, Duncan Watmore, Valentin Roberge, Cabral, David Moberg Karlsson, Vito Mannone, Jozy Altidore, El Hadji Ba, Emanuele Giaccherini, Ondrej Celustka, Charis Mavrias, Ki Sung-yueng, and another deadline day addition, Andrea Dossena.
The Italian coach now has a job on his hands to integrate his new signings into the first team fold, at a time when many Black Cats fans fear another battle against relegation is on the cards. Having lost their opening game of the season at home to Fulham, the Wearside club draw at Southampton before losing 3-1 at Crystal Palace on Saturday.
