Rodgers took risk on Balotelli

The Reds spent £16m on the Italian - who has failed to score a Premier League goal since his return to England - purely because he was available at the end of the transfer window.

"I always said it was about availability and affordability of players," said Rodgers.

"Mario was the one right at the very end who was available for that. I said when he came in that it was a calculated risk and it’s something I have to work on to try to make it work for the team.

"You assess what the group had. We brought in Rickie Lambert as someone who can play some games for us and come off the bench and be an impact player for us in certain games.

"Daniel is a top Premier League player but has shown during his time here that he does get injuries so we needed to prepare for that. Obviously Fabio Borini looked like he was on his way out [to Sunderland].

"We had attempts for other strikers that didn’t materialise for one reason or another so it left us right at the end of the window with a decision on whether just to go with what we had, when experience told us we were too light, or take a calculated risk on a player who has quality and then could we get it out of him consistently?"

Balotelli has yet to look comfortable while playing for Liverpool, failing to touch the ball in Basel's penalty area during Wednesday's disappointing 1-0 Champions League defeat in Switzerland.

"In terms of his behaviour he is consciously trying to work hard at what we demand here, the intensity and work rate,” said Rodgers.

"I think in terms of goals, he needs to improve. It is as simple as that. At this moment he has not hit the numbers he will have wanted. I encourage the strikers to get into the framework of the goal, wide players to come in and get into the framework of the goal and to break the lines.

"The quality of our service [against Basel] wasn’t up to the standard it should be. You also have to make and create goals yourself and he didn’t do that. But we win and lose as a team, and against Basel we were not good enough."