Inter Milan coach Roberto Mancini says any club in the world would take Mario Balotelli in his best form but the shape the Liverpool forward is currently in means he is not one of his transfer targets this winter.
It was Mancini who promoted the then 16-year-old to the Inter first-team squad for the 2007-08 season, handing him his debut in December 2007 and seeing him grab a brace on only his second appearance almost seven years ago to the day.
The pair won the Serie A title together that season, losing the final of the Coppa Italia after Balotelli had scored a memorable goal against Juventus to get them there. Those are only distant memories now, however, with Mancini hoping Balotelli can soon return to that kind of form.
"I think he just needs to have a good Christmas and get back to how he used to be," Mancini told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "If he can return to being as strong as he used to be, then I would [want him back]. If he was playing like that, who wouldn't want him? It's all down to him."
While Balotelli, who also featured under Mancini for Manchester City, does not yet figure on Inter's wishlist, many other names are doing the rounds in Milan.
Paris Saint-Germain's Ezequiel Lavezzi, Wolfsburg's Ivan Perisic, Liverpool's Lucas Leiva and Atletico Madrid's Alessio Cerci are the main candidates, and Mancini would take any, if not all, of them if he could.
"Anything can happen in football," Mancini said. "[Lavezzi] is a great player and he knows Serie A, but he still belongs to PSG. [Perisic] is a good player and has the right profile, but he's not easy to get either.
"The Brazilian [Leiva] is another big name and his experience would do us good, but he is still a Liverpool player. We'll have to see. Clubs don't let their players leave so easily.
"[Cerci]'s a very strong, important player and if I'm not wrong, I think he wants to come back to Italy, but we're going to have to get lucky. We need to aim for players who are not playing much and are not happy where they are currently and Cerci's finding things difficult in Madrid, but maybe Atletico had a plan based around him."
If Mancini can get to just one of his targets and strengthen his side sufficiently this winter, he sees no reason they cannot aim for third place and a return to the Champions League in the season Milan's San Siro will host the final.
Inter go into 2015 just six points adrift of third-placed Napoli, even if they are currently 11th in the standings and have won just one of their last seven league games.
"If we make it, I'm going to get on my bike and do the full Camino de Santiago," Mancini said. "I mean it. I promise. The year I won the Premier League, we overturned a deficit of eight points on United in the final six games. Having done something like that, do you really think I don't believe in our chances?"