A shocking disclosure came to light yesterday as a respected member of Manchester City’s medical team claimed that the club’s brilliant, but unhinged, Italian striker Mario Balotelli was ‘allergic to all forms of life. Humans, trees, the sea, even the air.’

It was initially revealed that the Italian youngster was hypersensitive to particular types of grass following his ordeal in Kiev on Thursday evening where an allergic reaction to the pitch caused the player to vomit and feel extremely dizzy throughout the first half. During the break Balotelli received two injections to reduce the swelling in his face but could not continue beyond the hour-mark.

Now however the Cutter can exclusively announce that his allergies stretch far beyond merely turf carpet and might possibly explain why the scowling front man is continually mentally unstable, like Kerry Katona on a particularly heavy period.

Our anonymous source – whose credentials consist of him informing us that he works for City in a medical capacity and boasting an impressive row of multi-coloured pens in his shirt pocket  – told of the club’s anguish as they gradually discovered the true depths of the player’s ailments.

‘At first we just thought he had psychological issues. Senor Mancini was convinced he could tame the wild erratic personality and become a father figure to the lad. After a short while it became very apparent – to us at least – that the problems went much deeper than that. Mario really was as mad as a bag of squirrels and would snap and snarl at the slightest thing. In the canteen once they were all out of his favourite pasta sauce. He threw a chair at the window and cried for four hours straight.’

‘He even purposely wrote off an expensive sports car because the radio played a Bruno Mars song that he didn’t like.’

'The half-time oranges are only tangerines? This is the biggest injustice ever!''

‘Eventually our patience wore thin and we conducted a series of tests. The results were incredible. In twenty years of practice I’ve never seen such a thing. The boy is allergic to anything and everything and the slightest contact with a living cell of any kind creates real physical discomfort. Even the vibrations of a human voice aimed in his direction can send him spinning into a heady concoction of misery and pain. You have to feel sorry for him really. The sound of a babbling brook or the sight of a puppy smiling creates instant neuralgia of the face and for his hormones to erupt like Mount Etna yet everybody thinks he’s football’s Charlie Sheen – mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Actually he’s more like that Macauley Culkin character in My Girl.’

Or the Samuel L Jackson role in Unbreakable, the Cutter suggested, but our source hadn’t seen that film so was unable to comment.