We’re very interested in the Craig Bellamy story with regards Rangers’ Tom Lawrence.
Now, for those who don’t know, Lawrence has a toxic past related to a dreadful car crash which wrecked half the year of a former team mate at Derby in Richard Keogh (knee injury in the accident) – Lawrence was let off by the court with community service and there’s no defending the man’s behaviour.
A former Wales regular, he was dropped immediately and only finally got a recall during the Covid era under Rob Page, but didn’t really get many calls after that and now current manager Craig Bellamy has been offering his piece on Rangers’ playmaker:
“No, not at all. I’ve never once heard anything of that (being left out through his past). It’s just the numbers. I have a certain amount of numbers I can go to. Tom is definitely a player I really like, but at this present moment there’s one or two players I’ve put in those positions.”
It’s a weird response given Wales aren’t really endowed with a lot of number 10s and certainly absolutely none playing in Europe at Lawrence’s level.
We do think Bellamy is offering a diplomatic answer here, especially in light of Lawrence’s own previous comments on the matter:
“I spoke to the manager before the international break this month (September). We’ll have another chat and see where we’re at. But there’s no pressure on it, it’s pretty open on both sides. I’m not going to say I should be in this or be in that. It was open to go there last time but we felt it was right with the injuries I’ve had in the past just to keep going and make sure I get good training here.”
Basically Lawrence’s past is probably being held against him and we can’t really blame anyone for that – the boy pled guilty to drink driving and there was real damage in there. He was fortunate to escape a prison sentence.
Whether he will ever properly be part of the Wales setup we couldn’t tell you, but they do say time is a great healer – whether Keogh agrees is up to him.
There is the small matter of Bellamy’s own Celtic past, but given his kind words about Rangers when he was at Parkhead, we don’t think that really matters. At one point, Rangers were quite close to signing the boy ourselves.
Either way, Lawrence probably has a while to wait yet.