“A youngster who could grace England’s midfield for years to come”

In an article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, their Football Correspondent  Henry Winter claims that we have “a gem” and future England star in our academy.

“There is also a wonderfully skilful but wayward youngster at United’s academy who could grace England’s midfield for years to come – but only if he responds to Ferguson’s intelligent guidance. If Ferguson can rein him in, United and England have a gem.”

This is extraordinary praise from one of Britain’s top football writers. Most likely he’s refering to Ravel Morrison who is a 16-year-old midfielder/winger playing for United’s Under-18’s. The official site describes him as “a skilful, creative midfielder capable of scoring and making goals”. He was recently picked in the England squad for the UEFA Under-17 qualification starting in late October.

It’s unlikely that Henry Winter watches a lot of our Under-18 games or relies only on youtube compilations. More likely his very positive assessment is based on interviews with insiders at Carrington or the FA.

Telegraph describes Morrison as “wayward”  and on different internet forums he’s rumoured to have an attitude problem and be hard to handle. More worrying is that he was caught up in a guns and drugs bust five months ago. He was in a car stopped by the police and officers are believed to have found drugs and guns in the car (at least according to the Mirror). This explains why Ferguson might need to reign him in.

I’ve previously read some positive reports on Morrison, mainly at United Youth who offers by far the best coverage of our youth teams, but following the Telegraph article it will be even more interesting to follow his progress.