Chris Wilder believes he has a potential £50million player on his hands in Ravel Morrison after providing one of English football's unfulfilled talents with a Premier League lifeline.
Now 26, Morrison is trying to realign the progress of a wayward career following an ill-fated move to Lazio four years ago and obscure stop-offs with Atlas in Mexico and Ostersund in Sweden.
'It's not for him to keep looking back. He's got a great platform, a great opportunity. He's been as good as gold with me. We talked to people, did checks on him,' said Sheffield United boss Wilder, of discussions with Harry Redknapp and Sam Allardyce, who managed the former Manchester United player at QPR and West Ham respectively.
'Financially it was a great deal for us. We are not tied in for two or three years. He's got the chance, if he succeeds, of improving and lifting.
'At the moment we are at a level where a Ravel Morrison fully firing, playing at the top of his game, is someone we get nowhere near - that's possibly a £40million, £50million, £60million player.
'There's definitely something in him, and he does things out of the ordinary, which is what I was after. We are a possession-based team that creates momentum and creates pressure but we've never felt we had someone that could do something out of the ordinary.
'He can and hopefully this might be the time he finds a home, enjoys his football and we have a fabulous player on our hands.'
Morrison, on a 12-month contract with an option for a further year at Bramall Lane, has been dogged by a heel niggle and was not in the squad for the opening-day draw at Bournemouth but is pushing to be involved against a Crystal Palace team featuring Wilfried Zaha, with whom he had an on-field spat as England Under-21 team-mates in the 5-0 hammering of Lithuania six years ago.