Sir Alex Ferguson has spoken of his pain at selling Ravel Morrison to West Ham, explaining the midfielder was probably the saddest case of a player with enormous talent who was unable to control his inner demons.
His comments are made in his recently-released book about leadership, entitled ‘Leading’, in which he picks out Morrison as a player simply unable to deal with the stresses, opportunities and pitfalls of modern life as a football professional.
“Sadly, there are examples of players who have similar backgrounds to Giggs or Cristiano Ronaldo, who, despite enormous talent, just aren’t emotionally or mentally strong enough to overcome the hurts of their childhood and their inner demons,” he said.
“Ravel Morrison might be the saddest case. He possessed as much natural talent as any youngster we ever signed, but kept getting into trouble. It was very painful to sell him to West Ham in 2012 because he could have been a fantastic player.”
“But, over a period of years, the problems off the pitch continued to escalate and we had little option but to cut the cord.”
Morrison should be doing everything in his power to shut people like fergie up and prove that they were wrong about him. Unfortunately he’s not got the character. He’s had plenty of chances. He’s been told it’s up to him that he can be anything he wants if he only applies himself. So West Ham, QPR, Napoli or wherever he is, always on the fringe of greatness but never quite making it. I feel sorry for him. He should be living the Italian dream but as a footballer, not auditioning for a role in grand theft auto.