BLOG: West Ham’s Morrison on his way out

 

West Ham boss Sam Allardyce is seemingly at the end of his tether with his problematic midfielder Ravel Morrison and the no-nonsense coach is believed to be pressing on with his abiding plans to get shot of the player.

It is no secret Allardyce and the 21-year-old have not been seeing eye to eye for quite some time now.

A catalogue of events have caused certain individuals connected with club to believe that the Hammers boss views player – despite being a talented midfielder – as more hassle than he’s worth.

First there was the fuss he kicked up over his drinking water two years ago, as a 19-year-old. Morrison apparently refused to drink anything other than ‘West Ham bottled water’ whilst away in Germany on a pre-season tour, which raised a few eyebrows amongst fellow players and coaching staff.

One might have cut the boy some slack and put his moment of petulance down to teenage hormones, but only this summer he is reported to have expressed his displeasure of long-haul flights. This prompted many to form the opinion that this was a feeble attempt on the player’s behalf, to opt out of the West Ham pre-season tour of New Zealand.

It has also widely been reported that Morrison chose to delay an essential operation to his groin, putting it down to his ‘fear of going under the knife.’

All of the above issues are understood to have been deemed by Allardyce as pathetic protests and ones for which he had no sympathy.

Sources close to Upton Park have suggested there have been other incidents of friction between the Hammers boss and the player during the two years he has been signed to club, despite having not spent a great amount of time working together.

Although Morrison has been with West Ham since 2012 (he joined from the Manchester United youth academy), he has only played in the first team on 16 occasions owing to being absent from Upton Park for much of the last two seasons – serving loan spells to Birmingham City then Queens Park Rangers.

With at least half a dozen clubs reported to have lodged their interest in the midfielder this summer including Swansea, CSKA Moscow and Sporting Lisbon along with a number of Championship sides, a summer departure for the England U21 international could very much be on the cards.

When you bear in mind the fact Big Sam is in the process of rebuilding his side, having already brought in four promising new first team players – midfielders Cheikou Kouyate and Diego Poyet along with forwards Mauro Zarate and Enner Valencia – it is becoming more and more clear that young Morrison will continue not to feature in his vision for the team, going forward.