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Borini wants to start with Mario

Cape Town - Liverpool striker Fabio Borini is confident that he can forge a profitable partnership with Anfield newcomer Mario Balotelli.

Borini has found opportunities hard to come by since returning from a loan spell at Sunderland last season, while Balotelli has struggled to make an impact following his move from AC Milan in the off-season.

The pair have shared the field for just 98 minutes thus far, but Borini is confident that their partnership will prove fruitful if they're given more of an opportunity.

"I have played with him before and found it really well on the pitch," he said.

"Not just because of the language but we were born with the same idea of football, as Italians, so it's really easy to understand each other even without talking.

"He's a player that can change the game whenever he wants. It's a tough league, probably the toughest in Europe - and I think he understands that.

"In the games, he runs a lot and is really giving himself to the team, being very unselfish."

The 23-year-old could face an even bigger struggle to get on the park when Daniel Sturridge returns from injury, but he asserts that there is no reason why he can't work in tandem with Sturridge, Balotelli and Rickie Lambert.

"We have four completely different players so there is a good choice of players in the squad, because we can all do different things," the Italian asserted.

"We can all play together and we can all play on our own up front when it is a 4-3-3. It is a good selection of strikers and we can all learn from each other.

"I know there are some things that Rickie might do better than me, so I can learn from him. It's the same with Daniel and Mario. We all learn from each other if we have the right attitude.

"We can all play together. I've played in lots of teams but that's something I've never seen before - such a different selection of strikers."

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