Lawrence wants players prove themselves

The national squad will face Barbados in a friendly international tomorrow at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva before hosting Panama and then Mexico (on March 28) in World Cup qualifiers.

Lawrence, speaking in an interview before yesterday’s training session at the Larry Gomes Stadium in Arima, admitted: “The preparation has been good with the boys. I think what’s most important for us is to look at them physically, to look at them tactically to see that the work we’ve done over the last couple of weeks, how much they’ve (taken) on board. So I think the preparation for the games has been good.” The former TT defender stated that the majority of the 26-member training squad will be involved in the Barbados friendly.

“The idea of the game is to ensure that everybody gets minutes and to see how much they’ve (taken) on board,” said Lawrence.

“They’re all going to be part of the game come (Friday) night.” With the players turning out regularly for training despite the fact that it’s their off-season, Lawrence noted, “I think what we’ve done is we’ve tried to understand and incorporate the fact that the boys have just come off a long season so we’ve tried to manage the sessions in a way that we wouldn’t overload the players (but) just to make sure that we’re prepared.

“The preparation is all for Panama come March 24,” he stressed.

“So I think the boys have done well so far.” As far as the current form of the overseas-based players are concerned, Lawrence said, “what we’ve done is look at the players who played over the weekend.

We’ve managed to get footage of their games and we’ve looked at the games.

So we have a good idea of which players were involved, which players didn’t play any minutes.

“So we’re going to keep tabs on that between now and the next 10 days. It helps us in our selection process coming March 24.” Tomorrow will see Lawrence make his official debut as TT coach.

He pointed out, “My role is to prepare the boys and to make sure that they’re ready for every single game that we’re going to play.

As I’ve said in the past, I am here to try and see if I can develop a pathway for the progression of Trinidad and Tobago football.

“That’s my intention and every day that I come out to work my objective would remain the same... to prepare the boys, to try and help improve on and off the football pitch, and that’s the role that I’ve took upon myself and that’s how I plan to do it.”