Sam Allardyce insists he will not let the recent hype around Ravel Morrison disrupt the 20-year-old’s development as a player.
Morrison has been the subject of increased praise from fans, the press and his peers after several match-winning performances for the Hammers and England’s U21s this season.
And now with talk of Morrison earning enough recognition and doing enough on the pitch to perhaps earn a call-up to England’s first team for the World Cup in Brazil, Allardyce is as determined as ever to keep the midfielder’s feet firmly on the ground.
He told whufc.com: “I have to be careful with the amount of publicity that Rav gets to make sure that we just continue his growth slowly and continue him playing to the level that he’s playing at and try and make him better.
“We’ve got to make sure there’s no distractions that might put a young man off at this stage of his career which can happen. They can have their ups and downs, they can burst on to the scene, they can get lavished with praise and then lose their focus and when they lose their focus and when they lose their focus they can dip away again and we don’t want that.
“He’s got to concentrate on the next game and whatever happens at the end of the season will happen.”
Meanwhile, Allardyce believes West Ham can take advantage of Manchester City‘s poor away form on Saturday when Manuel Pellegrini’s men visit the Boleyn Ground.
“They have faltered away from home which we can hopefully capitalise on,” he added.
“They’ve been a bit Jekyll and Hyde, fantastic at home and not won away. From our point of view we’ve got to look forward and be encouraged by their results.
“Last year we got a fantastic 0-0 against them at home and we certainly have to hit the form of our top level players to play at their level, anything less than that would make life very difficult for us with quality of their squad.”