Matt Lawlor – A different kind of manager – Back Page Football
Matt Lawlor can talk. He tells you a lot. He seems honest – full of vigour and realism. Watching him in interviews is like a free show at the cinema, or the trailer of a soon to be released biopic.
Except it isn’t a once great musician we’ll be watching when the full performance comes out. It isn’t Walk the Line with Johnny Cash. It isn’t A Complete Unknown with Bob Dylan. Nor is it Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. It’s a set of men (perhaps less tortured). Eleven or eighteen, depending on how deep you want to go.
Lawlor is Rodin in many ways. He gets to sculpt a football team though, rather than mess with clay, terracotta and bronze. He gets to test his near-38-year-old mind on the finer points of EFL League Two football.
Hiring him, or rather promoting him, in January 2026 on an interim basis was either a stroke of luck or a slightly exploitative manoeuvre given that Lawlor has been here before, post-Scott Brown (September 2023) and post-Charlie Adam (December 2024), albeit for a combined total of less than a fortnight and just two games.
The thing is, Lawlor brought more invention to the side in those two games than previous managers have over a full season. You could see it in the body language, the way the players ran out of the tunnel. No fear. Excitement.
The 2024 Boxing Day win over Chesterfield (2-0) courtesy of Matty Virtue and ‘crazy’ Kian Harratt may prove to be a lucky charm given the start to Fleetwood Town’s season in 2026/27 (Chesterfield in both cup and league).
And the Football League Trophy win (again 2-0) over Tranmere (5th September 2023) with the help of ex-greats, Jayden Stockley and Phoenix Patterson, aptly showed Lawlor to be a lover of free-flowing football.
In March of this year Fleetwood did the decent thing and appointed Matt Lawlor on a two-and-a-bit-years’ permanent contract. Always the ‘man in the building’ doing other things, a little like Matt Damon scribbling on the hallway chalkboard in Good Will Hunting, Lawlor seems to think differently.
He has high standards too. Some of his post-match interviews, now a further 20 games in to his Fleetwood tenure, are carried out with the calm intensity of someone who is revelling in the limelight.
On the April 25, after the 2-2 draw away to Shrewsbury Town in the penultimate game of the 2025/26 season, Lawlor gave his most telling interview: “… Incredibly frustrated … controllable moments that we’re just gifting now… It’s becoming a habit isn’t it [drawing]… Pre-season …I’m telling you it won’t be like this… A terrible, terrible habit that…we need to crack…
“It must be a mentality that needs to flip. I’ve told them there’s been five or six years of below-averageness at this club, if I’m honest. And that’s really unkind of me, like, I know there’s a lot of hard work that’s gone into that, but it’s been a failing club for five or six years. It’s a reset. I’m telling you it’s a reset this summer…
“I’m gonna reiterate, I will work, staff will work, players will work as hard as anyone in this country. I’ll work everyone to make sure this gets right… Success always, always, always for me means winning. Always.
“You learn in training. You learn around the ground. I literally watch and think about everything. Like, I watch how they operate, how they eat food, how they interact with each other, how they interact with the public, how they interact with the fans. Everything matters to me. Everything.
“So if we’re gonna create the culture that I want to create, everything matters. And I learn every single minute of every single day. I’ve learnt a lot of positives.”
Lawlor is a man finally given his big chance, the highest professional position of his career, and he does not wish to have regrets. He does not wish to do a ‘Starmer’ – be full of U-turns and small dabs to the canvas. In his expression, we hear the roar of desire and craving, yearning and thirstiness.
He is keen to prove his theorem to others, to map out a blueprint that Fleetwood hasn’t seen since John Sheridan and Joey Barton, circa 2018 to 2020. His core players, the old boys, are Jay Lynch, Danny Andrew, Shaun Rooney, Ched Evans and Ronan Coughlan. But it is the never-been-here-before players who need to excite and show steadfastness if this rocket is to reach orbit.
It is 30-year-old Andy Cannon (formerly of high-achieving Wrexham), 25-year-old Kane Thompson-Sommers (the MK Dons midfielder and Bristol Rovers loanee), soon-to-be 24-year-old striker Josh Thomas (former Wales under-21 speed merchant) and young defender Jake Batty who must help form a new spine.
Bed these in with the promising youth (Crispin McLean, Raff Cirino, Conor Haughey – all just 19 years old) and Fleetwood would seem to have hunger and talent in abundance. And that’s before we discuss the importance of midfielders Mark Helm, Harrison Neal and Lewis McCann.
Lawlor knows he has a leaner squad now, however. He knows that any injury is critical. Take Haughey and his mere 10 minutes of pre-season football before sustaining a knee injury. Haughey, the young man who thrived last season when given the opportunity to display great leadership at centre half.
Hearing Lawlor talk is surely a fillip for anyone though. There is a wariness and prudence to him (the bags under his eyes testament to this) – yes – but bursting out forcefully is the joy of managing a team, a squad of players, who may just inherit his high standards and believe that FTFC can finish in the top seven and earnestly dabble with promotion.
It would be fitting and fantastic if only to other clubs’ men in the building who often get overlooked. Lawlor has a lot to prove, but it’s extremely evident that he’s here to shake things up in his first full season, rather than whimper and follow the last half dozen years.
