Lawless still wishes Thistle had bit more Dutch courage
Winger wanted Willem move but stayed to light up Firhill
STEVEN LAWLESS has enjoyed a fine career in Scotland. The 29-yearold has a Championship winner’s medal, helped Partick Thistle to record their highest league finish in decades and has played an integral role as Livingston have continued to progress at a remarkable rate since joining two years ago.
The winger, who is now out of contract, came through the youth ranks at Motherwell, spending a couple of seasons out on loan at Albion Rovers to get his first taste of men’s football. It’s something that Lawless credits with kick-starting his career – “I think that was the best thing that I’ve ever done” – but revealed that it could have taken an altogether different turn at a few stages over the years.
After moving to Firhill in the summer of 2012 and helping the Jags seal the title during his debut campaign in Glasgow’s west end, Lawless had been gaining admirers for his performances. Dutch side Willem II, recently relegated from the Eredivisie, even went as far as to submit a five-figure bid for the wide man – something that Lawless only discovered after receiving a call from his grandmother.
“That was the one that interested me, just because it was over in Holland and the age I was,” Lawless said of Willem II’s interest. “I think the style of play over there would have suited me and improved me as a player.
“The first I actually heard of it was when it was on the news! My gran phoned me and told me to put the news on and it popped up but the club rejected it. Then I got a phone call saying why it was rejected and I just had to accept it and get on with it. That would have interested me because I think it would have improved me as a player massively because of the coaching over there.
“It’s one of these things in football that you have to take on the chin and move on. The club obviously wanted a little bit more money for me – I don’t know how much the bid was but the club must have thought that I was more important than whatever they were getting for me.”
Lawless would remain at Thistle until the summer of 2017, when Alan Archibald’s side were relegated to the Championship via a play-off defeat to Livingston, one year on from securing an historic top-six finish with the Jags.
Even with the benefit of hindsight, Lawless struggles to pinpoint where it all went wrong but suggested that Archibald’s team selection may have played a crucial role – as did the departure of Liam Lindsay to Barnsley the previous summer.
“It’s hard to put a finger on it. To this day I think that team was a very good team,” he insisted. “Losing Liam Lindsay was massive, he was so steady and he bailed us out so many times. I think we missed that. We gave away too many sloppy goals and I think we chopped and changed a lot if I’m being brutally honest.
“I don’t think we gave boys who we knew could do the business as much game time as we could have. I think my longest run in the team was at left wing-back when I was covering for injuries.
“It’s the same with Chris Erskine, Kris Doolan. Whereas I think if you gave the three of us a run in our actual positions as much as you possibly could then I think we would have been slightly better off. We might not have stayed up but we would have given ourselves the best possible chance and I think we found that out in the play-offs.
“We went with boys we knew and boys we could trust but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. We were playing against a Livingston team that had physicality in abundance but they were also a good team. We were the perfect team for them to play.
“Livi had boys who weren’t afraid to mix it up and after taking Liam Lindsay out the team I don’t think we had that in abundance. We had boys who were willing to put their bodies on the line, don’t get me wrong, but it’s different from boys where that’s their game. Being physical isn’t my game – I’m willing to put my body on the line and try it – but at the end of the day if you’re putting me in a battle with someone and that’s their game then I’m not going to win it.”
I think it would have improved me as a player