Den­nis Lawrence, the T&T men's se­nior na­tion­al foot­ball coach will not be go­ing any­way, the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion has said in a state­ment yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, re­gard­ing ru­mours the lanky coach was set to take up the top coach­ing job at Eng­lish Sec­ond Di­vi­sion club Wrex­ham, the club he rep­re­sent­ed be­tween 2001 to 2006.

Ru­mours of the move be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing ear­li­er this week, but the foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tion in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse said, "The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion has tak­en note of the con­tents of me­dia re­ports em­a­nat­ing out of Wrex­ham, Wales in­di­cat­ing that Na­tion­al Se­nior Men’s Team head coach Den­nis Lawrence is a lead­ing can­di­date to take up the man­ag­er’s role at his for­mer club."

It added, "The TTFA wish­es to state that it has no in­ten­tions of al­low­ing its cur­rent em­ploy­ee, Mr Lawrence, to en­gage in dis­cus­sions with the club re­gard­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a move and a sub­se­quent step down from his po­si­tion as head coach of the Men’s Se­nior Na­tion­al Team. The FA has en­gaged in dis­cus­sions with Mr Lawrence on this mat­ter and is pleased to have his un­der­stand­ing and co­op­er­a­tion."

Con­sid­er­a­tion of Lawrence did not come as a sur­prise as the for­mer T&T de­fend­er made his mark at the club in 2003-2004, win­ning the Play­er of the Sea­son award that year, be­fore be­com­ing the first Wrex­ham play­er to play at a World Cup, start­ing all three of his coun­try's games in 2006 in Ger­many.

It is un­der­stood Wrex­ham is present­ly mov­ing to ap­point­ment Lawrence who is cur­rent­ly the lead­ing choice to fill the va­cant po­si­tion, which was last held by Bet Vic­tor.

Lawrence, who made 198 ap­pear­ances for the 'Reds' in a five-year spell be­tween 2001-2006, is cur­rent­ly ahead of as­sis­tant man­ag­er Gra­ham Bar­row, whose odds are cur­rent­ly 16/1.

Oth­er po­ten­tial can­di­dates in­clude John Barnes (6/1), John Askey, who Rick­etts has re­placed at Shrews­bury, at 8/1, Dar­ren Fer­gu­son and Dave Challi­nor (16/1), Kevin Nolan and Andy Mor­rell (20/1).

Oth­er no­table names linked in­clude Craig Bel­lamy and Har­ry Kewell (25/1), Bri­an Mc­Der­mott and Ian Hol­loway (33/1).