Tom Lawrence - Joined Rangers

[Simmo’s left foot]

Shame in some ways, on a good day he is a good player, but not many good days... over a million a year in wages to a player who only turns up occasionally. No wonder we are in such a mess.

 

[brady1993]

1 hour ago, Ambitious said:

I don't think we should be piling in on Lawrence. It was obvious he was going to leave after his contracted ended, which I believe suits all parties. He's not going to be here next year and personally I would give him the month off, as well as others who don't see their future here next year, so we can bed in the younger lads who may well be needed next season. 

Let's be honest, we're going to be playing in games that have absolutely no meaning. The players looking to move aren't going to put their bodies on the line, they will do the bare minimum to get by - essentially making them worse than a 18 year old who may want to make a point. If if the latter doesn't, at least we will have learnt more than carting out the senior players that won't be here. 

Byrne is another potentially in the same boat. 

To be honest I think on that front it was getting towards the time to faze him out anyway.

[brady1993]

40 minutes ago, Anon said:

Lawrence is a decent player. Certainly not my cup of tea, but he's proven Championship quality. The problem with his time at Derby has always been that he's never come close to living up to the justifiably high expectations for one of the highest wage earners. And before anyone starts, yes, I'm aware that the 37k listed in the Mail isn't necessarily accurate, he's definitely one of our top earners regardless.

One of my major frustrations is that Lawrence is the prime example of our bafflingly poor transfer policy that has helped land us in our current mess;

Bang average player has statistically exceptional season that any analysis deeper than, "oooh shiney, we want" would reveal as a clear anomaly unlikely to be reproduced.

Once the player is at their peak career value Derby swoop in with an absurdly high bid and stupidly high wages to dissuade competition from other clubs who the players agent assured us were very close to signing him.

Realise we've been sold a dud and wonder why there's no interest when we put the word out that a bang average player with 30k/week wage demands is available for transfer.

I largely agree, one thing I do wonder with him though is whether we'd have seen more from him if we had more options for rotation  (or been more willing to rotate him) whilst he's been here.

Championship wingers by and large are inconsistent with them drifting in and out of form. With Lawrence we've largely played him through those bad spells during his time here and placed an increasing amount of expectation on culminating in this season where in my opinion we've tactically set up to try to get the most out of him. And to be honest he seems to have done worse the more we've seemingly relied on him.

Of course this could just be a case of him doing better when we've had better players but anecdotally he seems to me to have always done better the first game or so back after a layoff.

[ilkleyram]

1 hour ago, Ambitious said:

I don't think we should be piling in on Lawrence. It was obvious he was going to leave after his contracted ended, which I believe suits all parties. He's not going to be here next year and personally I would give him the month off, as well as others who don't see their future here next year, so we can bed in the younger lads who may well be needed next season. 

Let's be honest, we're going to be playing in games that have absolutely no meaning. The players looking to move aren't going to put their bodies on the line, they will do the bare minimum to get by - essentially making them worse than a 18 year old who may want to make a point. If if the latter doesn't, at least we will have learnt more than carting out the senior players that won't be here. 

Byrne is another potentially in the same boat. 

Do you really believe that a group of our first team players are now effectively going to stop trying for 29 matches just so they can get a move elsewhere? I don’t. 
They’ll make mistakes as they’ve always done, they’ll miss chances, miss tackles, shots and headers and some will move on either in January or the summer, but the character of this squad and individuals within it, including Tom Lawrence and Nathan Byrne, will not be in question. There is nothing that we have seen so far this season to suggest anything else, from players or management team. 

[Ambitious]

22 minutes ago, ilkleyram said:

Do you really believe that a group of our first team players are now effectively going to stop trying for 29 matches just so they can get a move elsewhere? I don’t. 
They’ll make mistakes as they’ve always done, they’ll miss chances, miss tackles, shots and headers and some will move on either in January or the summer, but the character of this squad and individuals within it, including Tom Lawrence and Nathan Byrne, will not be in question. There is nothing that we have seen so far this season to suggest anything else, from players or management team. 

Not give up and stop trying completely, but they will no doubt be thinking about what an injury in the next 6 months means for their careers. The more experienced players, certainly: Byrne, Shinnie, Lawrence and perhaps Morrison. They stick out to me as the four that are coming to the end of their deals and probably don't want to be playing in League One next season. 

[Gritstone Ram]

Surely if there is interest from several clubs we could get a small fee for him.

[ilkleyram]

1 hour ago, Ambitious said:

Not give up and stop trying completely, but they will no doubt be thinking about what an injury in the next 6 months means for their careers. The more experienced players, certainly: Byrne, Shinnie, Lawrence and perhaps Morrison. They stick out to me as the four that are coming to the end of their deals and probably don't want to be playing in League One next season. 

I wouldn’t have thought that many of our players will want to play in League 1 next year, experienced or otherwise. Some will with us and some will move on. The four you mention deserve, in my opinion, to be playing at least at Championship level. I wouldn’t begrudge any of them a move for a minute. Equally though I don’t think that the possibility of injury and therefore not getting a move will occur to any of them - not only will the leaders in our dressing room and our management team not allow them to do so but they will also know that when you start ducking out of tackles you start being more likely to get injured. 
You can argue that all have their weaknesses, fair enough, but none have given us any indication that they won’t try their hardest to win, especially while mathematically we can still stay up. If they don’t it wouldn’t be much of an advert for their services at a time when being an out of contract footballer is not the greatest position to be in.

[i-Ram]

Has he got his licence back yet, or are one of us on this forum going to drive him to his next club?

[sage]

17 hours ago, i-Ram said:

Has he got his licence back yet, or are one of us on this forum going to drive him to his next club?

I've put my name down already.  Room in the back if Keogh moves on again too. 

Edited November 19, 2021 by sage

[twinkletoes]

oh no so sad bye bye tom

[GenBr]

Probably our best player on his day, but it doesn't happen enough for it to be worth the amount of money we are paying for him in our current predicament. If he were willing to take a large pay cut I'd be happy for him to stay, but I can't see it happening.

[kingsy1884]

I am sure a bigger club like Millwall, Luton or Blackpool will pick him up. 

Depressing. 

Edited November 21, 2021 by kingsy1884

[dcfc4ever]

Some embarrassing comments in this thread,some of our fan base are clueless.Well played yesterday Tom Lawrence keep up that performance and you could well save our Derby County from relegation then no one will be moaning about you.Tom Lawrence the new legend ?

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, dcfc4ever said:

then no one will be moaning about you

oh yes they will.

[GenBr]

9 hours ago, dcfc4ever said:

Some embarrassing comments in this thread,some of our fan base are clueless.Well played yesterday Tom Lawrence keep up that performance and you could well save our Derby County from relegation then no one will be moaning about you.Tom Lawrence the new legend ?

Lets see if he manages to do it in more than one game shall we before calling other people embarrassing ?. For the wages he is on he should be doing far more - not turning up once in every 15 games.

[mwram1973]

2 hours ago, GenBr said:

Lets see if he manages to do it in more than one game shall we before calling other people embarrassing ?. For the wages he is on he should be doing far more - not turning up once in every 15 games.

Not his fault the club is payin silly wages, i'm more miffed about the wages given to the likes of Anya, Blackman etc.

[LazloW]

Sunday was very interesting. For much of the game, it was a typical Lawrence performance; quite anonymous.  Then he pops up with a wonder goal, decent penalty and there were a couple of good runs where he looked like a different player… and therein lies the problem. We all know he ‘has it in him’ but he doesn’t do it consistently enough for me to make it worth having him around on the off-chance he performs his brilliance. He is a classic 1 in 10 player. It’s a shame really.
Nevertheless, goals like the one on Sunday are very welcome and will keep potential buyers interested! 

[vonwright]

I always wonder with players like Lawrence - the occasional wonder-dribble or wonder-goal, combined with a lot of anonymity/stuff not coming off - how much is really within his control, and how much is basically down to luck. By which I mean nine times out of ten his dribbling won't come off because that's the limit of his skill, and likewise with his 'ambitious' shooting. But he's the only one for whom it will work that one time. So when it does, we all say 'You've got something in you no one else has, why can you do that every time?' But the fact is, he can't, and never will, because he needs that bit of luck that means the defender misses a feint or lunges in early, or he finds himself in just the right position with just the right amount of space to measure his shot. 

I wonder if this is true of Sibley too. He just needs to get a bit lucky, get a break that gives him some space. He's maybe not quite good enough to consistently make that space for himself, and maybe never will be. That's not necessarily a lack of application. 

 

 

[DazzaRam]

Lawrence has done very well this season. I said this on another thread before Sunday. Hes far and away our best attacking player. Picked by every manager hes played under at Derby. Funny thing is that every person who makes a negative comment about him would pick him if they were Derby manager. 100%. 

[BBG83]

On 22/11/2021 at 10:09, dcfc4ever said:

Some embarrassing comments in this thread,some of our fan base are clueless.Well played yesterday Tom Lawrence keep up that performance and you could well save our Derby County from relegation then no one will be moaning about you.Tom Lawrence the new legend ?

He's going in January. For nothing. Definitely won't be helping Derby stay up.

He played well on Sunday. It will be his one in five. Plus he's got to put himself in the shop window now.

Everything thats wrong with Derby can be summed up by Tom Lawrence. We overpaid for him, he's overall under performed, he'll go for free, and he'll come back and score a hattrick against us followed by a knee slide and cupped ears in front of the South Stand.