Jake Lawlor wants to help Wrexham AFC make amends for disastrous National League campaign

The experienced defender’s two-year deal ends this summer, and with the coronavirus crisis having a major impact on football, he faces an uncertain future.

There’s been no word regarding Wrexham’s retained list, with Lawlor sure that any notion of players holding all the cards almost certainly over - at least for the foreseeable future.

“It is mad really. The longer it goes on and you don’t hear anything then you do start to wonder what’s going to happen,” said Lawlor regarding his future.

“There’s been things about player power over the years, that will be gone completely. A lot of people in the game are going to be left without jobs with teams cutting their budget and their squads as a result of what’s happened.”

Lawlor and his Wrexham team-mates, as well as the club’s backroom staff are all on furlough, meaning boss Keates is waiting for a nod from the powers that be before finalising his plans for the 2020/21 National League campaign.

“We’ve heard from the gaffer, but not about deals for next season,” continued Lawlor. “I want to stay, it’s just if there’s an opportunity to stay.

“I don’t know what’s going on with the club and I don’t know what the gaffer was going to do before the coronavirus hit, and things might have changed since.”

Lawlor joined Wrexham in September 2018 after a short spell with Salford, the 29-year-old having four permanent managers - Sam Ricketts, Graham Barrow, Bryan Hughes and Dean Keates, a caretaker boss in Brian Flynn and seeing a global pandemic end the current campaign abruptly.

“It feels like a long two years,” joked Lawlor, continuing: “The first year was very good with us reaching the play-offs, and we probably should have gone up.

“Things didn’t go to plan this season. It’s strange because I thought things had improved, but it’s clear that they hadn’t.

“I thought we’d made some good signings to add to a good squad, but things didn’t click. In the end it was a relief to stay up, but that in itself is disappointing.”

There is a case of ‘what if’ for Lawlor, who agreed with team-mate Luke Summerfield’s notion that Wrexham would have been celebrating promotion if they’d emulated displays produced during the 2018/19 campaign.

“If we’d performed as well as last year, we’d have gone up. I don’t think the league was as strong this year, there weren’t any teams like Leyton Orient and Salford,” said Lawlor. “If bottom of the table had beaten Barrow or Harrogate it wouldn’t have been a big shock.

“When we played the likes of Harrogate, who were a really good side near the top and we were towards the bottom, man for man I never thought they were a lot better than us.”