LAZIO WERE KNOCKED out of the Champions League last night after falling to a 3-0 second-leg play-off defeat to Bayer Leverkusen.
The Italians had been leading 1-0 from the first game but despite being in the game for long periods, the concession of a third goal with just two minutes left ensured their elimination.
By that stage, a familiar face had entered the fray to make his European debut for the club.
Ravel Morrison was tipped for super-stardom from an early age.
At his local club, Manchester United, his skill and touch and speed ensured the whispers got louder as he got older and made his way through the ranks. One day, Sir Alex Ferguson came to watch and summoned Rio Ferdinand to come along too.
“Look at this kid – number 7 – on the training pitch”, Ferguson said.
Come and watch him for a minute. He’s the best I’ve ever seen at that age.”
Ferdinand remembers how the then-14-year-old Morrison was ‘taking the mick out of all the other players on the pitch’.
Morrison was training with the first-team by the age of sixteen and Ferdinand remembers one moment vividly.
I remember Darren Fletcher saying ‘When he’s running with the ball, he’s almost looking at me while he’s doing it and waiting for me to make a move and then reacting to it. And the top players do that. The top players react to defender’s movement. If you have a little nibble, they react and make you look silly and punish you.”
In October 2010, Morrison came on as a substitute for Park Ji-Sung after 89 minutes of a League Cup clash with Wolves. It was his only senior appearance that season but did his reputation no harm by scoring decisive goals for United’s youth side as they ended the campaign as cup champions.
The following season, there were two more cameos in the League Cup, getting a full 45-minutes against Crystal Palace after replacing Dimitar Berbatov. Paul Pogba was introduced as a replacement later in the game.
But by January 2012, Morrison was gone. Ferguson had grown weary of the off-field problems, of which there were many. Morrison signed for West Ham but was immediately loaned to Birmingham and spent a season in the Championship.
It seemed to do the trick as Morrison returned to the top-flight and was granted first-team opportunities under Sam Allardyce. Through the early part of the 2012/2013 season, Morrison was finally delivering on his promise, scoring five goals for the Hammers, including two in the Premier League – against Everton and Tottenham respectively.
But everything went off the rails again. He finished out the season back in the Championship after being sent on loan to QPR and as his contract neared an end, so too did Allardyce’s patience.
It’s not that he has to impress me as a footballer, we know about his talent”, said the then-West Ham boss.”It’s about playing the talent and himself to a disciplined life in general, is what needs to happen with Rav. If that happens we’d want him here.”
“It’s about self-discipline. We have our code of conduct like everybody else but self-discipline as a professional player in life is very important. And he has to sort that side of it out for me to be part of this squad that we have here.
It’s a lack of concentration and a lack of discipline. In the end you can only talk to him so often, so many times about changing. Since he’s been here he has got better, there’s no doubt about that. But he still needs to get even more disciplined to where he is now. I think that he’s happy when he’s playing first-team football as well.“
Morrison spent the remainder of 2014 with Cardiff and didn’t play a single minute of competitive football between December of last year and earlier this month.
His contract was terminated early by West Ham but he was thrown a lifeline by Lazio. Ever since he signed for the Italian side though, rumours have linked him with a return to English football with QPR suggested as a possible destination once again.
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Still, Morrison impressed in pre-season in Rome and came on for his new side in their Italian Super Cup defeat to Juventus, playing for the last few minutes and facing his former team-mate Pogba in midfield.
He was an unused substitute for Lazio’s first league game of the season against Bologna last weekend but despite the positive forward steps, there seems an inevitability to it all.
Prior to the Bologna game, Lazio boss Stefano Pioli spoke of Morrison and the rumours of his pending departure.
Morrison will definitely stay with us. There’s never been any possibility of him leaving. He has technical quality, he’s improving, but there’s work to be done from a tactical point of view. He has to work harder when he doesn’t have the ball. If he does that then he’ll get his chance.”
Up until now, Morrison hasn’t been one to work harder. The narrative suggests that when the going gets tough, he bids a hasty farewell.
In Italy, there are no excuses. Away from everything that caused him problems before, he has the anonymity he’s always craved. Yet, he’s still drawn to the reports about him in the UK media, taking to social media to comment about them.
The same worries appear to be there – the lack of self-discipline, an unwillingness to make the sacrifices, the inability to shut out the noise.
Morrison is at the start of his Lazio career and is on the fringes of the first-team. There are plenty of reasons to be positive. Yet, his past shows the beginnings are usually the best it gets. Rapidly, everything tends to fade.
For his sake and for ours, let’s hope it’s different this time.
