Lawrence remains in England as parent club head away
Luton’s efforts to re-sign Manchester City attacker Emilio Lawrence have been given a potential boost after the young attacker wasn’t included in the club’s 28-man squad for their pre-season tour of Asia.
The 20-year-old was a star during his six months at Kenilworth Road last term, as having broken into the first Hatters’ team, went on to score twice in 21 outings, including in the Vertu Trophy final victory over Stockport County at Wembley, also adding five assists too, earning his place back in the Scotland U21s squad as well.
Boss Jack Wilshere has spoken of his desire to bring in a left-winger to bolster his squad, with Lawrence being at the top of his list, and those chances might have now been improved when new City manager Enzo Maresca included several youngsters in his squad due to a number of his first teamers still enjoying a post-World Cup break, such as Jeremy Monga, Kaden Braithwaite, Floyd Samba, Jaden Heskey and Ryan McAidoo, but Lawrence didn’t get the nod.
Emilio Lawrence applauds the Town fans at Bolton last season - pic: David Horn / PRiME Media Imagesplaceholder image
Emilio Lawrence applauds the Town fans at Bolton last season - pic: David Horn / PRiME Media Images
Speaking about the winger recently, then asked about adding the City youngster on loan once more during the summer transfer window, Wilshere said: “Yes, there is a chance, there is a chance. Ultimately that will be down to him and Man City, but I think he did really well. Sometimes players and clubs think the next step is obviously to go up a league, however, I made my opinion clear to Emilio that that’s not always necessarily the best step.
“Spending some more time with us, he knows us, we know him, can actually propel him higher than he thinks. We’re working with that one. Everyone knows what I think about Emilio and how much he helped us, especially towards the end of the season. He grew so much and I think when you have a player that develops that much in a small amount of time, you want to get him back because you feel like you can make them even better.
"There’s always some that come up later, whether that be a loan, whether that be a loan from Arsenal or Man City, whatever that is. They see their pre-season as an opportunity to try some of their young players in the first team and see how they get on. Normally what happens is later, towards the end of the window, they get allowed out on loan.”
Manchester City squad: Tijjani Reijnders, Mateo Kovacic, Marcus Bettinelli, Nico, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Vitor Reis, Josko Gvardiol, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Savinho, Claudio Echeverri, Jeremy Monga, Antoine Semenyo, Abdukodir Khusanov, Phil Foden, Ryan McAidoo, Kaden Braithwaite, Divine Mukasa, Divin Mubama, Max Alleyne, Mahamadou Sangare, Floyd Samba, Jaden Heskey, Rico Lewis, Jack Wint, Matty Henderson-Hall, Stephen Mfuni, Max Chabot, Xavier Parker.