Was Morison any good?

[The Great Mass Debater]

Found myself thinking about Steve Morison when I saw he was on the bench last night. When we bought him for a reported 2.8m on going up to the Premiership, I was pretty non-plussed. Seemed like a signing that came after other targets had failed to work out. Lambert felt we needed to play with a lone striker and from the off-set plumped for Morison. I felt a sense of resentment towards Morison as I felt that Holt had been unfairly cast aside/written off and that he deserved his opportunity. I was not convinced Morsion was any better.

Holt went on to win his place back and the rest was history, but Morison did seem to do the business at the start of his City career. You felt that if you could get the ball onto his head he could score. Although not his game he seemed to do a decent job as a target man - so well that there was talk of Tottenham looking at him for 8m.

Change of manager, change of form and he seemed to become dead wood we desperately needed to cut out. He hasnt really done much since.

So now that the dust has settled, I wonder if I was harsh on Moro mainly due to my loyalty to Holt. He scored some pretty good and some pretty important goals for us. He couldnt sustain his purple pathc, perhaps in the same way Tierney couldnt, but credit where credit is due, both players had a pretty good period.

So, now we can look back on his time objectively - did Morison achieve more than we gave him credit for?

 

[eatonparkboy]

I don't honestly believe Morison was a Premiership player. I don't think he quite had the skill to challenge top flight defenders and certainly couldn't play the lone striker role. He had certain attributes and they were probably more suited to the Championship down. But he did score some memorable goals for us and should be remembered for that.

 

[Jimmy smith]

Similar to Pilkington. His desire and team momentum got him a good half season in the premiership but once that had gone and a few injuries killed his momentum, he was never the same.

 

[splutcho]

I thought he was very, very harshly treated by some. He wasn't the most talented player you'll ever see, but he still scored 9(?) important goals for us in the Premier League. Certainly no worse a player than David Fox, or like you mentioned, Tierney. Just got picked on for not being Grant Holt. There was also the disgraceful rumour spreading about his personal life which couldn't have been easy for him.

 

[Canaryboy]

He was Championship standard, like most of the players to finish 12th under Paul Lambert.

I still believe that finishing 12th with the players that we had, and the budget that he was given, was his greatest achievement.

In fact looking at the squad we had that season, only one player is currently playing in the Premier League and that's Kyle Naughton (who we didn't own). Almost all of them are, just like Steve Morison, plying their trade in the Championship. 

Morison overachieved with his 9 goals, as did the squad as a whole with their 12th place finish. What about Andrew Surman with his 5 Premier League goals in that campaign? 

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

I thought he was very, very harshly treated by some. He wasn't the most talented player you'll ever see, but he still scored 9(?) important goals for us in the Premier League. Certainly no worse a player than David Fox, or like you mentioned, Tierney. Just got picked on for not being Grant Holt. There was also the disgraceful rumour spreading about his personal life which couldn't have been easy for him.

Im honestly not trolling when I type this, but what rumours? I know there were rumours that he and other players had had bust-ups, but what else are you referring to?

 

[splutcho]

There was a rumour that Tierney was shagging his missus.

 

[Canaryboy]

There was a rumour that Tierney was shagging his missus.

I think that was confirmed as untrue when Sky TV cameras interviewed Grant Holt and Steve Morison for a greyhound racing program, and Tierney was sitting next to Morison!

Another in a long line of malicious rumours to come out of our fanbase, pretty sure the Francis-McKenzie rumours were confirmed as untrue as well. As for the Ashton-Shackell one, that was just playground stuff. 

 

[splutcho]

Yeah it wasn't unusual to see them having a laugh and a joke while warming up for games either. We must have a higher concentration of morons in our fanbase than most.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Oh right, I never heard that. I knew there were constant referrals to a training ground bust up between the two but never knew where that came from. Morison had that great first half a season then only scored one goal after that I think. Seemed a different player. Either there was a personal problem or in terms of ability he was simply returning to base

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Havent heard any of those rumours either!

 

[splutcho]

Either there was a personal problem or in terms of ability he was simply returning to base

Or fans gossiping about his personal life and being booed when he came on started to get to him.

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

Does make you wonder how insulated players are. Obviously they cant escape booing, but it makes you wonder how aware they are of what people say about them. Footballers are human, and Im sure a quick look around the forums would upset many. Others surely have personalities where it is water off a ducks back. I think Hucks said in his book that Shackell took his ratings in the papers very seriously and was upset by poor reviews, but that others didnt look.

Tywin Lannister: "The lion does not concern himself with the opinions of the sheep"

Makes you wonder how much this is true

 

[splutcho]

Yeah they're just people like you and me, how they react to people slating them just depends on what kind of person they are. I have heard that Morison was quite sensitive about it, and quite wanted a quiet life (I do see the irony in this also being gossip about him).

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

He's a public figure, he wont be able to escape it. I doubt anything Norwich related is on his radar anymore though. Good luck to him

 

[Din]

He was superb for half a season. The first half of our first season in the Premier League he was excellent, and he rightly kept Holty out of the team. However once Holt dislodged him from the starting 11 again he seemed to drop in form drastically. I don't know whether it was down to his attitude, or his confidence, but for the next season he was dreadful (with the exception of his late equaliser at the Emirates to make it 3-3), and looked like a completely different player.

I thought he was unfairly scapegoated by a lot of our fans. It got to the point where the people who sit around me would say "Oh don't let him have the ball" every time he touched the ball. However, by the time he left he had overstayed his welcome really. 

 

[-Matt-]

The abuse got ridiculous. I recall clearly one game where Morison chased a defender down in their half, challenged for the ball, and the ball broke kindly for the defender. Morison ended up on his backside while the defender was quickly away with the ball. He made a big effort and was essentially unlucky on that occasion. 2 lads sat in front of me gave him a huge volley of abuse for not chasing the defender down once the ball had broken for him, completely ignoring the fact that SM had sprinted 40 odd yards to get there in the first place and was now 30 yards behind him hauling himself off the floor.

Grant holt dropped a massive clanger in their penalty box about 2 minutes later and they never said a word.

 

[Ricardo]

Something has gone wrong with him and I don't know whether it's physical or mental. He looked good at the start and then just faded away.

 

[It's Character Forming]

I think there was an autobiography by the manager at Millwall (can't remember who it was) which pointed out similar issues there.  I think Morison is one of those players who has got the ability but needs exactly the right type of supportive environment - manager and other players and I suppose probably fans too, to an extent - to do well, failing which his form just drops away completely.  And football being what it is, most of the time you don't get that sort of support.

a shame, but I think most fans underestimate how much of being a top footballer comes down not just to being good at football, but to dealing with other people - team mates getting on your back when you mess up, opposition players winding you up, and regularly having 20,000 people shouting abuse at you personally. 

 

[The Great Mass Debater]

A football pitch is a work environment just like any other and footballers are people. We like to think of them as commodities or 'weapons', but football is played in the mind far more than it is played on the pitch IMO. I certainly wouldnt flourish in the environment most footballers have to. it is by its nature competitive and you have to show you have the right stuff. Thats not only about what you can do with your feet. Its no surprise some of the better players are absolute c*cks. You have to have that resilience and arrogance to thrive in such an environment.