Ravel Morrison‘s high profile loan switch to QPR has uncovered a number of ‘conspiracies’ behind his rise and fall at West Ham this season.
When things started going pear shaped and we began seeing less and less of Morrison in the starting line-up, and then the match day squad, the automatic feeling was that the player himself had been causing trouble behind the scenes.
His reputation of being a bad boy automatically meant that he was the one orchestrating the trouble in the dressing room, apparently pushing for a move to Fulham and frequently missing training.
Such accusations, along with the Fulham debacle, sparked fans giving Morrison abuse on Twitter and Instagram, some of which was quite disgusting and uncalled for.
Of course, a lot of the bad comments people made towards him were out of frustration more than anything. Hearing that your club’s most promising youngster has been pushing for a move and causing trouble in the dressing room is obviously going to frustrate and upset the fans who had enjoyed watching him play earlier in the season, and had also given him hero-like status for his goal in the 3-0 win over Spurs at White Hart Lane.
But after all of that and all of the accusations towards Ravel, stories have emerged this week that suggest it’s actually Sam Allardyce who has played a big part in Ravel being sent out on loan and potentially going AWOL.
On the back of Allardyce’s claims that Morrison is refusing to play with a groin injury that he has 100% recovered from, Morrison’s agent Nick Rubery went public to claim Morrison had fallen out with the manager due to attempts to get him to switch agents.
According to Rubery, Allardyce asked Morrison to ditch him for his own agent Mark Curtis. The trouble is, Morrison sees Rubery as a very close friend and is unwilling to ditch him under the orders of Allardyce. And why should he? To help line the pockets of Allardyce? Perhaps Big Sam is looking for one last pay day before the owners tell him to pack his bags in the summer? Maybe we’ll never know.
But this is, in a nutshell, the reason behind the fall-out. We may never find out the truth behind what has happened over the last couple of months, but what I think is vital to all of this is that we shouldn’t be publicly attacking Morrison for his apparent trouble making when, in fact, he may not have actually done anything wrong at all.
Yes, he has a history and a reputation but, given how successful and grown up he had become early on this season, it does seem a bit strange that suddenly it’s all been ruined and he’s off to QPR. Surely something must have sparked the current situation? Why would he have thrown away what was promising to be a successful and popular West Ham career for a loan move to a Championship side?
Underneath one of Morrison’s recent Instagram posts he reacted to an angry comment towards by saying something like ‘You wait until the truth comes out.’ To me, that suggests there was behind this than just him being the bad boy he is always being made out to be.
So with all of that in mind, perhaps it’s time to stop hounding the player and wait to see if the actual truth does come out. Let Morrison go to QPR and continue his development as a player – he’ll certainly do that under Harry Redknapp – and then assess the situation once he returns in the summer.
If we are going to hold on to Ravel by offering him a new contract and him agreeing to pen-to-paper, he is going to need to feel wanted not just by the club, but by the fans.
So until we learn all the ins and outs about this, we should support Morrison and wish him all the best at Loftus Road.
