Wales’ Tom Lawrence has been praised as a special talent by his Derby County manager Phillip Cocu after he undermined Swansea City’s faltering promotion hopes.
Lawrence was in the headlines for the wrong reasons back in October when he was convicted for drink-driving and his form dipped in the weeks that followed at a club that was then struggling.
But his spectacular shooting and winning goal in Derby’s 3-2 victory at the Liberty Stadium reminded Ryan Giggs what the attacking midfielder can offer to his country at this summer’s Euro finals.
Lawrence fired a blistering shot past a startled Freddie Goodman after earlier hitting another swerving effort against the post for Martyn Waghorn to score from the rebound.
“In the last couple of games Tom has returned to the form he had earlier in the season,” said Dutchman Cocu.
“He has a great ability to take shots. He can hit a curved shot from outside to inside and his shots today were the ones that are really difficult for a goalkeeper to catch it, even if they reach it.
“He is improving his first touch. It’s so important for a striker or winger, that first touch. If you need another touch to move the ball, then the chance can be over.
“This is an aspect of the game he has worked on and I’m happy to see that the end product is helping the team.”
With Bournemouth’s David Brooks only still feeling his way back to fitness after a long term injury and Manchester United’s Dan James suffering a dip in form, Lawrence could well play a leading role for Wales this summer.
He provided the sharpness, while Wayne Rooney supplied guile and the know-how as Derby came from 2-1 down to further dent Swansea’s fading play-off hopes.
It was Lawrence’s dipping shot in the eighth minute that proved too hot for Woodman to handle and although he pushed the ball onto the post, Waghorn swept in the rebound.
Swansea brought Yan Dhanda off the bench at the interval and he struck a superb 25-yard angled drive for the equaliser.
Derby got the jitters and when a cross was flapped at by keeper Ben Hamer, Kyle Naughton made it it 2-1
But Rooney’s nous gives Derby a self-assuredness that Swans’ youngsters lack and his calm influence was apparent as Duane Holmes and then Lawrence helped turned things around for the Rams.
Swansea missed the chance to cut the gap on their play-off rivals and manager Steve Cooper felt they only had themselves to blame.
He said: “We’ve got to be careful, if we don’t start winning games the gap will start getting bigger and bigger, it’s that time of the season.
“We have two games left this week and we’ve got to react on Tuesday. If we play better then we give ourselves a chance of winning.
“I’m not looking much further than that but I know we’re in that part of the season where you have to win games, and especially those home games.
“That’s what makes today doubly frustrating, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot, we allowed them to win the game rather than them having to work really really hard to earn it.
“It should have been the other way around, we should have put the game to bed after going 2-1 up, and we didn’t.
“It was a learning experience for all of us as a team. There was so much of the game we could have managed better and we didn’t.”
