Name: Liam Lawrence
Position: Right Winger
Date of Birth: 14/12/1981
Nationality: Irish
Place of Birth: Retford
Squad Number: 7
Nickname: Lennie
Previous Clubs: Mansfield, Sunderland
Joined Stoke: 2007 (£500,000)
Tony Pulis has a reputation as a manager who can turn around the career of a player with a chequered past, and this is never more the case than with Liam Lawrence. Shunned by Sunderland after filming himself having sex with Miss Sunderland, Pulis was happy to give the former Mansfield man a new home, first on loan, and then on permanent terms in January 2007.
Lawrence has rarely looked back, always impressing and winning the club’s player of the season award for 2007/08, his crossing ability, as well as his fifteen crucial goals, helping him to secure the accolade. Though as an winger he lacks pace, the quality of his dead ball delivery and finishing make up for this, making him a firm favourite with the Britannia Stadium faithful.
Despite scoring the Britannia Stadium’s first ever Premier League goal, a penalty aainst Aston Villa on the second day of the season, Lawrence actually began the 2008/09 season quite poorly, struggling for pace and then ruling himself out injured in bizarre fashion, badly damaging his ankle after tripping over his pet labrador. The controversy-loving Stoke fans were quick to suggest that this was a lie, he had really damaged his ankle falling down a nightclub’s stairs and then fallen out with Pulis, but these accusations are completely unfounded, and after regaining fitness early in 2009 he went on to become one of the key factors in our final push towards survival, scoring vital winning goals against Blackburn and Hull.
He struggled for form, fitness and games the following season though, failing to show the level of the performance that made him such a key player in the past.
Like many players not quite good enough for England, Lawrence has embraced the Irish heritage of his grandparents, declaring his intentions to play for the Emerald Isle several years ago. His international debut did not come until May 2009 though, when his form for Stoke impressed Giovanni Trapattoni sufficiently for Lawrence to be handed a start in a friendly match against Nigeria.
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