diff --git a/GPy/util/initialization.py b/GPy/util/initialization.py
index fc5f175b..3262ae4f 100644
--- a/GPy/util/initialization.py
+++ b/GPy/util/initialization.py
@@ -13,23 +13,21 @@ def initialize_latent(init, input_dim, Y):
     """
     :param init: initialization method for the latent space, 'PCA' or 'random'
     """
-    # dealing with depcrecated initialization method
-    # should be remove along the next major release
-    if init == "empirical_samples":
-        warnings.warn(
-            "Deprecated initialization method 'empirical_samples'. "
-            "Use 'random' instead.",
-            DeprecationWarning,
-        )
-        init == "random"
-
     Xr = np.asfortranarray(np.random.normal(0, 1, (Y.shape[0], input_dim)))
     if "PCA" == init:
         p = PCA(Y)
         PC = p.project(Y, min(input_dim, Y.shape[1]))
         Xr[: PC.shape[0], : PC.shape[1]] = PC
         var = 0.1 * p.fracs[:input_dim]
-    elif init == "random":
+    elif init == "empirical_samples":
+        # dealing with depcrecated initialization method
+        # should be remove along the next major release
+        warnings.warn(
+            "Deprecated initialization method 'empirical_samples'. "
+            "Use 'random' instead.",
+            DeprecationWarning,
+        )
+
         from ..util.linalg import tdot
         from ..util import diag
 
@@ -42,8 +40,18 @@ def initialize_latent(init, input_dim, Y):
         )
         Xr[: EMP.shape[0], : EMP.shape[1]] = EMP
         var = np.random.uniform(0.5, 1.5, input_dim)
-    else:
+    elif init == "random":
         var = Xr.var(0)
+    else:
+        # dealing with depcrecated initialization method
+        # should be remove along the next major release
+        warnings.warn(
+            f"{init} is not a valid initialization method."
+            "Supoprt for anything else than 'PCA' or 'random' will be removed in the next major release.",
+            DeprecationWarning,
+        )
+        var = Xr.var(0)
+        
 
     Xr -= Xr.mean(0)
     Xr /= Xr.std(0)