Tom Lawrence appreciation thread

[Alph]

Many of the reasons I don't rate Tom Lawrence were missing on Saturday. All of them actually

Why on earth would you give him grief on Saturday. Well, I wouldn't do it at a match at all to be honest because it don't help. 

For probably about 80 out of 100 games he's been a selfish playground ball hogger who only looks promising if every defender dived in. But Saturday was one of those games where in the past I've thought "eh up, is he switching on?"

And he got grief. 

This is what happened with Butterfield and others. You go in giving them a bad game before a ball is kicked and then it would have to be a world class performance to change your mind. 

Les, wherever you are. I don't believe you can be more of a critic of Lawrence than me. I thought he was pants when I saw him ball hogging at Ipswich. But give him credit where he's earned it. He did well Saturday. Nothing like his usual self. If there's any chance of him becoming a team player then let it be!! 

[cheron85]

12 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

His stats for an attacking player are really distinctly average (although not sure what I am comparing to there ?)

17 goals and 11 assists in 101 matches, so basically contributes to a goal every 4 matches.

I don't think that's distinctly average - I bet Marriott and Waggers are on about 1 in 3 and they're strikers - Lawrence has primarily played for us as a winger (and all this talk about him being a 10 I think is nonsense, he's an inside forward, RHS front 3 so he can cut in from the wing, 10 is too far forward and we want him to carry the ball from midfield)

I think too many people are getting bogged down on his transfer fee and that Rowett (thanks Gary) lauded him as the Ince replacement - We know that generally speaking what Rowett did was sell our better players and generally replace them with less good alternatives

However I also think there's a bigger picture thing here - When Lawrence plays really well he's unplayable - Games like Huddersfield at the start of the season they couldn't touch him first half and then he worked himself into the ground second - Pretty much no players can have those kind of games every week - In fact having 1 every 10 games is pretty good - The rest of the time Lawrence is a solid 6/10 player or maybe some games a 7/10 - On Saturday he was a solid 7, worked hard, covered his man, tracked back, supported Lowe, provided an assist - It wasn't his greatest game but it was fine (as were the perfomance levels of most of our players, maybe Clarke bagged himself an 8/10)

Compare that to someone like Bogle - He's a 7/10 most games but sometimes (Forest) a 5/10 and sometimes an 8/10 - Always got a potential mistake in him and plenty of games gets trapped back in his own half by a winger on form - I'd say his outstanding games are as rare as Lawrence's but his 7/10 games are more frequent

I think the problem is - People were convinced by Rowett that Lawrence is 'the answer' to losing Ince and Hughes - He isn't - He's a perfectly decent championship player but he's not a replacement for those guys - In a squad of other decent players he does well (looked better with Wilson and Mount) and when he starts playing more with Rooney we'll see more of him

And on top of that - The lad is obviously a confidence player - He scores and BAM! there's a different Lawrence on the pitch - Why would any of our fans think it's a good idea to berate a player who so obviously works on confidence? Secondary point, anyone who thinks he's arrogant I think misses the point - He's obviously got very little self-confidence as shown by how much he changes after a goal - I think he fronts it out most of the time cos he thinks he should

[G STAR RAM]

12 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

I don't think that's distinctly average - I bet Marriott and Waggers are on about 1 in 3 and they're strikers - Lawrence has primarily played for us as a winger (and all this talk about him being a 10 I think is nonsense, he's an inside forward, RHS front 3 so he can cut in from the wing, 10 is too far forward and we want him to carry the ball from midfield)

I think too many people are getting bogged down on his transfer fee and that Rowett (thanks Gary) lauded him as the Ince replacement - We know that generally speaking what Rowett did was sell our better players and generally replace them with less good alternatives

However I also think there's a bigger picture thing here - When Lawrence plays really well he's unplayable - Games like Huddersfield at the start of the season they couldn't touch him first half and then he worked himself into the ground second - Pretty much no players can have those kind of games every week - In fact having 1 every 10 games is pretty good - The rest of the time Lawrence is a solid 6/10 player or maybe some games a 7/10 - On Saturday he was a solid 7, worked hard, covered his man, tracked back, supported Lowe, provided an assist - It wasn't his greatest game but it was fine (as were the perfomance levels of most of our players, maybe Clarke bagged himself an 8/10)

Compare that to someone like Bogle - He's a 7/10 most games but sometimes (Forest) a 5/10 and sometimes an 8/10 - Always got a potential mistake in him and plenty of games gets trapped back in his own half by a winger on form - I'd say his outstanding games are as rare as Lawrence's but his 7/10 games are more frequent

I think the problem is - People were convinced by Rowett that Lawrence is 'the answer' to losing Ince and Hughes - He isn't - He's a perfectly decent championship player but he's not a replacement for those guys - In a squad of other decent players he does well (looked better with Wilson and Mount) and when he starts playing more with Rooney we'll see more of him

And on top of that - The lad is obviously a confidence player - He scores and BAM! there's a different Lawrence on the pitch - Why would any of our fans think it's a good idea to berate a player who so obviously works on confidence? Secondary point, anyone who thinks he's arrogant I think misses the point - He's obviously got very little self-confidence as shown by how much he changes after a goal - I think he fronts it out most of the time cos he thinks he should

Agree about not getting on his back, just dont agree with your assessment of him as a player.

IMO opinion he is the last player we want carrying the ball from midfield because 9 times out of 10 it breaks down. I wonder how many of his 11 bookings have come from situations where he has given the ball away in dangerous positions and then had to commit a silly foul?

Hope he comes good but 2 1/2 seasons in now and just cant see it I'm afraid.

[Curtains]

Oh how I miss Vydra and Lawrence together .

 

[cheron85]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

Agree about not getting on his back, just dont agree with your assessment of him as a player.

IMO opinion he is the last player we want carrying the ball from midfield because 9 times out of 10 it breaks down. I wonder how many of his 11 bookings have come from situations where he has given the ball away in dangerous positions and then had to commit a silly foul?

Hope he comes good but 2 1/2 seasons in now and just cant see it I'm afraid.

I think your 9 times out of 10 stat there is probably a perception issue rather than fact

Across his whole career his stats are average 1.6 successful dribbles per game vs 1.5 unsuccessful - His numbers get slightly better than that when looking just at his time with Derby

Compare that to Bogle and Holmes (who I consider to be very good when at breaking forward and dribbling etc) - Bogle 1.4 successful and 1.1 unsuccessful, Holmes 1.4 successful and 0.7 unsuccessful (slightly better more of both for Derby but proportionally about the same)

Compare that to someone who might (arguably) be a Lawrence replacement - Bennett at 0.4 successful dribbles and 0.5 unsuccessful (rising to 0.6 unsuccessful last season when he had more game time)

So about half his dribbles are considered successful statistically speaking - And he does more of them than other players

[G STAR RAM]

14 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

I think your 9 times out of 10 stat there is probably a perception issue rather than fact

Across his whole career his stats are average 1.6 successful dribbles per game vs 1.5 unsuccessful - His numbers get slightly better than that when looking just at his time with Derby

Compare that to Bogle and Holmes (who I consider to be very good when at breaking forward and dribbling etc) - Bogle 1.4 successful and 1.1 unsuccessful, Holmes 1.4 successful and 0.7 unsuccessful (slightly better more of both for Derby but proportionally about the same)

Compare that to someone who might (arguably) be a Lawrence replacement - Bennett at 0.4 successful dribbles and 0.5 unsuccessful (rising to 0.6 unsuccessful last season when he had more game time)

So about half his dribbles are considered successful statistically speaking - And he does more of them than other players

Fair enough but I dont read too much into stats, prefer to go on what I see with my own eyes and really fail to believe he only gives the ball away once a match when dribbling.

[cannable]

36 minutes ago, cheron85 said:

I think your 9 times out of 10 stat there is probably a perception issue rather than fact

Across his whole career his stats are average 1.6 successful dribbles per game vs 1.5 unsuccessful - His numbers get slightly better than that when looking just at his time with Derby

Compare that to Bogle and Holmes (who I consider to be very good when at breaking forward and dribbling etc) - Bogle 1.4 successful and 1.1 unsuccessful, Holmes 1.4 successful and 0.7 unsuccessful (slightly better more of both for Derby but proportionally about the same)

Compare that to someone who might (arguably) be a Lawrence replacement - Bennett at 0.4 successful dribbles and 0.5 unsuccessful (rising to 0.6 unsuccessful last season when he had more game time)

So about half his dribbles are considered successful statistically speaking - And he does more of them than other players

WhoScored? A dribble on that specifically requires a player to be beaten. 

[cannable]

14 hours ago, Derbyram1 said:

I urge you all to listen to the first caller on the Radio Derby moan in.

The guy called up about his mate Les who was the one that abused Lawrence in the west stand, his mate Les is so distraught that he’s not sure he can ever go back to pride park!!

30 seconds later Les messaged in on Facebook to say he likes Lawrence and thinks his best position is through the middle....it’s absolute gold, you literally couldn’t make it up!

Poor Les.....?

Went and checked the feed myself and Les was saying that it wasn’t even him and it was the caller who was the recipient of the abuse ???

[Derbyram1]

6 minutes ago, cannable said:

Went and checked the feed myself and Les was saying that it wasn’t even him and it was the caller who was the recipient of the abuse ???

Brilliant.....what an idiot that guy was!! ??

[cheron85]

57 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Fair enough but I dont read too much into stats, prefer to go on what I see with my own eyes and really fail to believe he only gives the ball away once a match when dribbling.

Okay that's fair - But I would always go back to the human brain alone isn't reliable at that - We tend to automatically re-iterate our own beliefs

It would be interesting if you could catalogue the figures in a notebook next time you go to a game - I suspect you'd end up surprised in the outcomes - Stats have changed my mind about plenty of players, Ben Davies being the classic example (looks like a bang average player, provides bucketfulls of chances)

36 minutes ago, cannable said:

WhoScored? A dribble on that specifically requires a player to be beaten. 

Yes - Absolutely but that's what we want our attacking players to do isn't it? Also worth checking the definition of a player being beaten - Doesn't have to be a one on one - Holmes regularly drifts past players who are just out of position and can't track back fast enough - That's still beating a player

I've included some other stats here to indicate potential wastefulness in other areas of their games too - Hopefully this should cover losing the ball in a variety of different ways

I'm using Bogle and Holmes as examples as I think they're similar quality to Lawrence (I rate all 3)

Dispossessions per game - Lawrence 1.8, Holmes 1.4, Bogle 1.4 (Lawrence lower and other higher this season btw)

Accurate Short Passes per game - Lawrence 18.2, Holmes 17.5, Bogle 31 (woswers Bogle! Although we play a lot of sideways in defence)

Inaccurate Short Passes per game - Lawrence 4.6, Holmes 4.2, Bogle 5.7

Key Passes per game - Lawrence 1.4, Holmes 0.7, Bogle 1.1

To be fair his most wasteful statistic seems to be shots

Shots per game - Lawrence 2, Holmes 0.8 (have taken Bogle out for this one as he's a defender)

Goals per game - Lawrence 0.2, Holmes 0.1

 

[Derbyram1]

[Ghost of Clough]

3 hours ago, Derbyram1 said:

One of the worst players on the pitch once more!

[Curtains]

7 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

One of the worst players on the pitch once more!

Say who . 

[Ghost of Clough]

1 minute ago, Curtains said:

Say who . 

Whoscored... 3rd worst player on the pitch according to the image.

[Curtains]

1 minute ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Whoscored... 3rd worst player on the pitch according to the image.

Oh I get the irony 

[Ghost of Clough]

7 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Agree about not getting on his back, just dont agree with your assessment of him as a player.

IMO opinion he is the last player we want carrying the ball from midfield because 9 times out of 10 it breaks down. I wonder how many of his 11 bookings have come from situations where he has given the ball away in dangerous positions and then had to commit a silly foul?

Hope he comes good but 2 1/2 seasons in now and just cant see it I'm afraid.

No player has more yellow cards than Lawrence's 11 this season... but from only 39 fouls. 20 players have committed more. Some of those more prolfic foulers haven't been as harshly treated: Mitrovic (1) Diédhiou, Stewart, and Bamford (2), Watkins, and Pack (3). Lawrence often gets booked for a first offence, yet Mitrovic has only had one all season?!

[RoyMac5]

4 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

No player has more yellow cards than Lawrence's 11 this season... but from only 39 fouls. 20 players have committed more. Some of those more prolfic foulers haven't been as harshly treated: Mitrovic (1) Diédhiou, Stewart, and Bamford (2), Watkins, and Pack (3). Lawrence often gets booked for a first offence, yet Mitrovic has only had one all season?!

It often sounds as if Lawrence commits a foul in 'retaliation' or when he's lost his head a bit? If so he would get booked more often.

[G STAR RAM]

2 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

No player has more yellow cards than Lawrence's 11 this season... but from only 39 fouls. 20 players have committed more. Some of those more prolfic foulers haven't been as harshly treated: Mitrovic (1) Diédhiou, Stewart, and Bamford (2), Watkins, and Pack (3). Lawrence often gets booked for a first offence, yet Mitrovic has only had one all season?!

Just a hunch but would guess most of Lawrence's are petulant fouls with no attempt to win the ball, would imagine Mitrovic is more putting his weight around.

[Mick Brolly]

6 hours ago, Derbyram1 said:

That's got to be somebody having a laugh. 

[SKRam]

22 hours ago, Ewe Ram said:

I thought that was hilarious. He said Les told Lawrence to track back and the player responded with foul abuse. Really?? You can bet Les hurled a mouthful of expletives, punctuated with lazy, useless and get off the pitch. Chris Coles spotting that comment was the funniest thing ever 

I was yards away from the guy who gave him abuse. I watched Tom and saw him utter ‘what?’ twice .......Think he shook his head too. Awful behaviour ?