Nigel Si­mon

For­mer So­ca War­riors World Cup de­fend­er, De­nis Lawrence, cur­rent as­sis­tant coach at Wigan Ath­let­ic could be set for an his­toric coach­ing role at man­ager­less Eng­lish Pre­mier­ship club, Liv­er­pool FC with­in the com­ing days. This af­ter Rober­to Mar­tin, the coach of Wigan was giv­en per­mis­sion by his cur­rent em­ploy­ers to speak to Liv­er­pool, one of Eng­land's most cel­e­brat­ed clubs about a pos­si­ble move to An­field. The 37-year-old Lawrence, who played for Wrex­ham be­fore sign­ing for Mar­tinez at Swansea City was named the as­sis­tant coach at Wigan last sea­son and has been part of its tech­ni­cal staff ever since along with Graeme Jones, an­oth­er as­sis­tant coach. Yes­ter­day it was re­port­ed that Wigan chair­man Dave Whe­lan had giv­en Liv­er­pool per­mis­sion to speak to Mar­tinez, fol­low­ing an ap­proach from the Car­ling Cup win­ners.

Liv­er­pool is seek­ing a man­ag­er fol­low­ing Wednes­day's sack­ing of Ken­ny Dalglish. Speak­ing to Sky Sports News yes­ter­day, Whe­lan said: "If Liv­er­pool are se­ri­ous then I may lose him." Whe­lan has al­ways said he felt the Spaniard was des­tined to man­age one of Eu­rope's top clubs and he would not stand in his way should one come call­ing. The Wigan chair­man re­vealed the Reds made an ap­proach ear­li­er yes­ter­day and he gave Mar­tinez per­mis­sion to speak with them. "When they phoned me I was ac­tu­al­ly with Rober­to hav­ing a meet­ing on what we are do­ing next sea­son," he said. "I did promise Rober­to and I have al­ways said when a big club comes he would have per­mis­sion to talk to them and they don't come any big­ger than Liv­er­pool.

"I gave him per­mis­sion and he will be talk­ing to them soon-I don't know when, but quite soon. "When Liv­er­pool sacked Ken­ny I have to say I thought Liv­er­pool would be knock­ing on the door and sure enough they are. "I would love to keep him but I have told Rober­to he has my per­mis­sion to speak with Liv­er­pool." Mar­tinez will not be the on­ly man­ag­er own­ers Fen­way Sports Group speak to in their quest to re­place Dalglish and he would be far from the pop­ulist choice. Ques­tions have al­ready been asked about his suit­abil­i­ty for a club the size of Liv­er­pool, con­sid­er­ing he on­ly has ex­pe­ri­ence at the bot­tom end of the Pre­mier League with Wigan and in the Foot­ball League with Swansea pri­or to that.