Jussi Jaaskelianen believes Ravel Morrison‘s loan spell with Birmingham City last season gave him the experience he needed to push for a first-team spot at West Ham.
The 20-year-old arrived at West Ham with a bad-boy reputation in January 2012, despite being labelled as one of the brightest prospects in English football by former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
But the 38-year-old Finnish goalkeeper feels Morrison has matured a lot since his loan spell and is now ready to take the Premier League by storm.
He told the London Evening Standard: “He is a very talented young boy who has really come through over the last season.
“He was on loan at Birmingham and he played regularly. That’s the main thing when you are a young player. You have to go and play games.
“There is no point going to a big football club and sitting on the bench, if you go to the lower leagues or the Championship, it is very good to get that experience in games and get better. You can see the benefit of that now.”
And Jaaskelainen believes that Morrison is beginning to realise his real potential and has urged him to convert his hard work in training into high-quality performances.
“You always have to learn and he has to learn what are not his strengths,” he added.
“Talent-wise, he is absolutely brilliant and hopefully he can take into the game what he does in training and start performing at that high level.”
