Liverpool spent €20 million to bring Mario Balotelli from AC Milan in the summer, which Brendan Rodgers believes was a necessary decision.
"As as a club we felt that buying Mario was the solution at the time," Rodgers told reporters.
"In the summer, we had Rickie Lambert. Fabio Borini looked 100 per cent that he was leaving, and obviously Daniel Sturridge has shown in his career so far that he gets injuries.
"To go into the season with no-one else would have been very difficult for us. It would have been unfair to leave Rickie Lambert, as a 32-year-old, as the only other striker that we had.
"I felt it was a risk we needed to take with Mario because, as a group, we couldn't afford not to at that time. It was obviously late on and we needed to have someone in.
"It's something that we can't regret now. I made it clear at the beginning it was a calculated risk - and that is why he probably cost the money he did."
