Queens Park Rangers manager Harry Redknapp has revealed that he tried to sign Mario Balotelli from Inter Milan when he was in charge of Tottenham Hotspur.

The 22-year-old striker left the Italian club to join Manchester City in the summer of 2010.

"If all that nonsense with Carlos Tevez wasn't bad enough last season, he's (City manager Roberto Mancini) now got Mario Balotelli sitting on the bench most weeks with a face like thunder," he wrote in his column in The Sun.

"I once tried to sign him (Balotelli) for Spurs before he went to City. I spoke with his brother and had a meeting with his agent after he'd had a fall-out with Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan. But we wanted him on loan and Inter weren't interested.

"And that's when I thought: 'If Jose can't handle him, what chance have I got?' Maybe it was a lucky escape because I don't think I'd have been able to handle the way he has behaved in England."

QPR will host City in the Premier League on Tuesday.