‘Blame yourself, not the players’

NARISSA FRASER

TT Football Association (TTFA) board member Keith Look Loy says national men's team coach Dennis Lawrence should take the blame for their recent performances.

The TT team have not won a match since September 2018, when they defeated the United Arab Emirates 2-0.

They have since lost to Thailand, Iran, Wales, Canada, Panama, United States, St Vincent/Grenadines and Mexico, and have drawn with Japan, Guyana and Martinique (twice). Their most recent loss was on Thursday night, when they fell 2-0 to Honduras in a Concacaf Nations League match at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo.

Speaking with Newsday yesterday afternoon, Look Loy said Lawrence should have resigned before the end of his contract, which was eventually renewed for two and a half years in February 2018. He said he was the only board member who voted against the renewal.

"The coach has done nothing to improve morale and to have that team feeling that they're going to play for this country and they're going to play with pride."

Otherwise, he said, "They become demotivated. You don't need to be a psychologist to understand that. You have to build them up, not beat them down and blame them."

Lawrence joined English club Wigan Athletic as an assistant coach in 2010 and worked under then manager, Spanish-born Roberto Martinez, during his time at Wigan, Everton FC and Belgium.

Look Loy said despite this level of experience, it was a risk to appoint Lawrence as TT coach.

"I don't want to hear about, 'He was working with Roberto Martinez,' and all of that. He (Lawrence) was not in charge, he was not responsible. There's a difference when you're working in the shadow of someone else and helping them run a training session, and when you are running an entire enterprise. If that was the case, then we could take any sergeant and make him CoP (Commissioner of Police)."

Under Lawrence's guidance, the national team have only won four matches, against Panama, the US, United Arab Emirates and Barbados.

Look Loy said, "He has never taken blame. He has blamed the TT Pro League, the players, everything except himself. A coach with a minimum of professional dignity would have resigned.

"When I sit down in that (voting) room, my business is not to see about Dennis Lawrence ego but to see about the interest of TT football. The public is saying he knows the TTFA can't fire him because they're broke and if they fire him they have to pay him off."

He said while the coach is only a "piece of the jigsaw," he should be willing to accept some of the blame for the decline of the team's performance.

TT's next match is on Monday when they face hosts Venezuela in a friendly game.