lenny fit for coventry

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Stoke star Liam Lawrence hopes to defy medical predictions by being fit enough to face Coventry City this weekend.

Lawrence has been warned he might need more than a week to recover from the groin strain which forced him to miss Monday's 2-1 defeat by Crystal Palace.

But he is also refusing to abandon all hope of returning to boost Stoke's ailing top-two ambitions at the Ricoh Stadium on Saturday.



"It's going to be touch and go," he admitted, "because the doctor said it would be one or two weeks before I am back.

"They are hoping to keep me off the training pitch until late Friday, then see how I am on Saturday.

"I'm desperate to be fit. It kills me to watch. I want to be out there with the lads.

"I'm sat in the stands heading and kicking every ball. When it doesn't go in the back of the net, like the other night, I'm as frustrated as everyone."

Lawrence first felt the groin go late last week, but was only ruled out of the Palace clash on the day of the match.

"It's something that came on in training at the back end of last week and I took a couple of days off to get it right.

"I worked hard with the physio and then trained on the morning of the game, but when I took a corner it just didn't feel right. I would have been a liability if I'd played.

"I'm now trying to be positive about the Coventry game, but I was being positive before the Palace game."

He also revealed that manager Tony Pulis gave his players a pep talk the morning after the home defeat to help raise sagging spirits.

"We had a meeting," he said, "and the manager reassured us he's still got belief in us.

"If you want to get promoted you've got to be a man about setbacks like this.

"We cannot keep worrying about the last match. It's all about Coventry now and getting something there."

The pressure on Stoke to win on Saturday grew last night when West Brom's 3-1 victory at Blackpool saw the Potters slip out of the Championship top two.

STOKE will field an almost exclusively youth team in tonight's reserve outing at Bradford City (7pm kick-off).