A look at Ashley Lawrence’s role at Paris Saint-Germain and potential suitors for the Canadian fullback – scout report

Ashley Lawrence is a Canadian international player who is 27 years old and plays as a full-back for PSG currently. She started her senior career at Toronto Lady Lynx in 2013 before joining Ottawa Fury, Vaughan Azzurri and then she made her biggest move to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017. She won several titles with the Parisian club including the Division 1 Féminine title in 2020–21 and the Coupe de France féminine in 2017–18 and 2021–22. Moreover, she is ranked 7th in the list of all-time most appearances at PSG, with 168 appearances so far.

In this tactical analysis scout report, we will be analysing Lawrence’s abilities and her performances at PSG and Canada while focusing on assessing which teams she can fit best and what tactics suit her the most, following her end of contract next summer. In fact, numerous teams are actually putting Lawrence on their radars and will most probably start negotiations with her very soon.

Teams like Chelsea, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and San Diego were linked with Lawrence and perhaps other teams are also thinking about making a move to get the Canadian international for next season. In addition, a section will be reserved for spotting the most fitting replacements for Lawrence at PSG.

Abilities and playmaking

Lawrence is a right-footed right-back essentially but who has been used in some other positions as well and mainly as a left-back and as a midfielder. Whenever needed, she always fills the gap for the left-back role while performing well defensively and in attack, using her right foot.

According to the following pizza radar, Lawrence is characterised by dribbling since she dribbles a lot per match, which is understandable because she plays in a position where she is often obliged to win duels when having the ball. Being able to dribble a lot is a great asset for a full-back and it just proves that she has some excellent physical abilities including strength and agility at the same time.

Lawrence also exploits this physical strength in an efficient way in the defensive phase and the statistics highlight her excellent advantage over her opponents in terms of defensive duels.

Moreover, Lawrence has got some of the best passing statistics among the Division 1 Féminine full-backs and for such a position, passing can be considered the most important characteristic for succeeding in such a role. Whether it is dangerous passes, progressive passes, or the number of passes per match, Lawrence has got some excellent rates in all of these types of passes, which is outstanding.

She also has a fairly good goal contribution rate, especially if we take into consideration that she plays as a full-back and not as an attacking player. Nevertheless, Lawrence can improve on some aspects if she would like to be a more complete player. Essentially, working on her positioning and on her ability to win aerial duels would make Lawrence a more solid defensive player.

Lawrence is also able to transform into a left winger when advancing on the left flank and she often provides key passes using her left foot or right foot from that wing. And this makes her an even more useful player since she is also able to interpret the winger role without problems. The following example just shows how she was able to exclude her direct opponent with a quick dribble and then cross the ball accurately using her left too, assisting a very beautiful goal.