Lawrence: Lack of top-class players a concern.
By Joel Bailey (Newsday).
NATIONAL men’s football team coach Dennis Lawrence is concerned about the lack of top-class players at his disposal.
Lawrence was speaking during the post-game media conference on Monday night at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo, following T&T’s 2-2 draw against Martinique in their Concacaf Nations League, League A, Group C second-leg tie.
Lawrence, the former T&T central defender, was asked if he has enough material to work with, in terms of a talent pool.
“When you look at what we used to call on before, it’s not the same,” Lawrence replied. “We’re calling on a different level of players. A lot of our players are going to India and the target for some of them seems to be the USL (United Soccer League – US), and that’s what we’re picking from. That’s what it is so we have to just work with it.”
The T&T coach was diplomatic in his response, when asked if he thinks the current crop of players are good enough to succeed at the international level.
“I think the challenge remains,” Lawrence said. “If you look at the squad that was selected, we, in the past, would select squads based on performances for your football club. “We’ve got to a stage now where we’re selecting squads based on players just on playing football, which is not ideal,” he continued. “Now the target for a lot of these players is to be selected based on performance. “I have to give credit to Ryan Telfer. He’s performing for his club and he comes and perform for T&T. I hope the boys can learn from his example.” Telfer, a Canadian-born winger, was one of three overseas-born newcomers called up for the pair of Martinique matches. Centre forward Daniel Carr (England-born) and midfielder Andre Fortune (US-born) were the others. Telfer made his debut in the 1-1 draw on Friday’s first leg, and Carr got his maiden international cap on Monday.
Commenting on Carr’s display, Lawrence said, “I thought he did well. He led the line and was very unfortunate not to get himself a goal (in the 72nd minute). With a bit more conviction, he would have put the ball in the back of the net. I was pleased with him and he can build on his performance.” An estimated 2,000 were on hand to watch T&T’s first international match at home since April 2018. “To the ones that turned up, thank you very much for your support,” he said.
“The only thing I can promise is we would always be working very hard to give them what they deserve. Regardless of what we do, we have to support our country. That’s how I am and that’s how I’ll continue to be.” Lawrence added, “We turned up tonight and the only thing we were focused on (was) trying to get a victory. We had it in the palm of our hands and we gave it away.”
Lawrence all that top class rhetoric you claiming now is pure ole talk so save that for those who’s not following this team closely. I saw you blank Greg Ranjitsingh when he was smoking hot for his USL club, then when he was finally integrated into the team he was never used even opting for washed up phillip and foncette on many occasions.
and if that wasn’t bad enough, in the gold cup when we had nothing to play for you still went ahead and played foncette in the Guyana game refusing to cap the lad, now you’re here talking about player performance after you getting your ass kicked all over the place?
don’t blame the lads dennis but blame yourself particularly when marvin phillip is the biggest error in judgement you’ve made since you began coaching this team. The second error in judgement was to go back to players like Aubrey David, kevan george and Daniel cyrus when you beat the usa without them and many of your first choice starters.
I sat and watch this martinique game again and by god the errors that the lads were making was just short of astronomical. kevan george is very very slow and to compensate he fouls a lot. the second goal came after he fouled the player unnecessarily when Paul already zeroed in on the player, that foul lead to the free kick which was on it’s way out for a goal kick when bateau redirected it across his goal, something that defenders are never supposed to do, it was the perfect head down for the matiniqan player.
Cyrus also made another glaring defensive error when he opted to put the ball out for a corner instead of a throw in. over the years of watching football i’ve seen other big time defenders plow balls into the stands to avoid giving away a corner kick, but not cyrus, this feller simply kicked the ball out and walked away quite contented.
the goal keeper himself is such a dunce, instead of having his defenders stand on the edge os the six yard box he had them crowd his goal so he had no clear pathway to attack the corner kick, the corner was a very poor corner and equally a piss poor header from levi garcia who headed the ball onto the boot of danial Carr, poor guy got his fist goal for TT no fault of his of course compliments of cyrus, phillip and garcia.
if these players are serious and wants to win games and become world beaters they must pay very close attention to their craft because a lot of these guys are not mentally and tactically aware enough to play in the English conference league.
they lack tactical awareness, interest and the desire to succeed, it to mention technical ability, in that regard they are severely lacking. ask these lads, how many of you really work on your craft, training on their own like christiano, messi, zlatan and Luca modric do? these great though at the end of their career still put in extra time fine tuning their skill set even though they don’t really have too.
take levi garcia for staters, on his debut he came on and scored a brace for us and every one got excited, but that was the last we saw of this bloke, I don’t know if he got his mind blown or he thought that he had arrived but his performances ever since was found lacking and nothing short of atrocious.
levi, jovin and Kevin could stay but I want to see a few main stay starters gone far from this team, just retired or relagated to the bench, and the first player i want to see gone is marvin phillip and i mean gone for good, give this man his gold watch and send him on his way. I also want to see the back of danial cyrus and Aubrey david, these guys are dead wood.
kevan george and Liston Paul needs to ride pine until we find suitable replacements for them, I also want to include hyland in this bunch. I think neval hackshaw is a way better center midfielder than Paul and goerge and should be starting over them. what I think lawrence should do is stick garcia in the middle of the park and see how he fits in now that we found a winger in telfer. I think garcia over plays his hand on the wing and is responsible for killing quite a few counter attacks that could have resulted in goals for us.
the bottom line is dennis we need to clean house. you did it vs the americans and we got good results and i’m a bit confused as to why you didn’t continue along those lines. these older players want to party and enjoy the fruits of their labor and busting a gut for their country is not on their list of things to do. they want to lay back and make that easy club money, so let them.
there are tons of young second generation trinis who’s up for the task, why not give them a shot instead of insisting on these flunkies.
remember November, it’s right around the corner and look Loy and the crew could barely wait to toss your boss out on his ass, you better get cracking before you get tossed with him.