Ravel Morrison 'saddest case of my career' says Alex Ferguson

Ferguson makes the comments in his recently-released book about leadership, entitled 'Leading', in which he picks out Morrison as a player simply unable to deal with the stresses, opportunities and pitfalls of modern life as a football professional.

"Sadly, there are examples of players who have similar backgrounds to Giggs or Cristiano Ronaldo, who, despite enormous talent, just aren’t emotionally or mentally strong enough to overcome the hurts of their childhood and their inner demons," he said.

"Ravel Morrison might be the saddest case. He possessed as much natural talent as any youngster we ever signed, but kept getting into trouble.

"It was very painful to sell him to West Ham in 2012 because he could have been a fantastic player.

"But, over a period of years, the problems off the pitch continued to escalate and we had little option but to cut the cord.”

Morrison was let go by United in 2012 and is currently playing for Lazio having moved to Italy from West Ham earlier this year.