Wigan Athletic boss Gary Caldwell airs heartfelt message to Nico Lawrence after injury ends AFC Fylde friendly

Wigan Athletic head coach Gary Caldwell has delivered his best wishes to trialist Nico Lawrence after a serious-looking injury brought Saturday’s 3-0 pre-season win over AFC Fylde to an early end.

Lawrence was stretchered from the pitch and taken to hospital for further assessment after going down with a leg injury in the 80th minute at Mill Farm.

The 22-year-old defender had come on as a substitute in the second half and has been with Latics for the majority of pre-season, featuring in both of their friendly matches so far.

The game was brought to a premature conclusion following the incident, with Caldwell praising the response of both clubs’ medical teams and the decision to end the contest.

“Horrendous - I think everyone in the stadium saw it straight away,” Caldwell said.

“Nico’s been in with us pretty much since the start of pre-season. He’s been doing great, so it’s a really unfortunate incident. Nobody was near him, nobody at fault, just one of those freak things that can happen in football.

“Credit to the medical team getting on as quickly as they did and dealing with him, credit to the ambulance staff that were here, the first aid staff that were here, the Fylde medical team and then obviously credit to Craig (Mahon, Fylde manager) and the ref for doing the sensible thing and just finishing the game because everything at that point has to go to Nico.

“He’s on his way to the hospital now, brilliant that the ambulances came so quickly, and fingers crossed, he gets looked after and recovers as quickly as possible.”

Lawrence joined Wigan on trial earlier this summer after spells with Southampton, Torquay United, Colchester United, MK Dons, York City and Farnborough.

Having been without a club, Caldwell acknowledged the difficult situation Lawrence is in and insisted the club will support him following the injury.

“Yeah, we will,” he continued. “The players were in with him there and he’s just gone to the hospital and it’s devastating for anyone, but obviously when you’re out of contract, there’s that difficult predicament that you’re in of not having a club and a contract behind you, so fingers crossed, everything that we kind of see tonight, we can get him assessed, hopefully it’s the best news it can possibly be and he can come back as quickly as possible.”

The injury overshadowed what had otherwise been an encouraging afternoon for Latics, who followed up their 3-1 defeat to Port Vale with a 3-0 victory over Fylde.

Chris Sze scored twice from the penalty spot before Fraser Murray added a third in the second half.

Caldwell was pleased with the performance but admitted it was difficult to focus on the football after Lawrence’s injury.

“Yeah, really good, it feels a bit weird talking about football after an incident like that, but in terms of the game, great workout,” he said.

“I think Fylde are a very good football team, they try to play, and they give you problems. I thought we pressed very well at times, counter-attacked really well at times, could’ve scored more goals, created opportunities, created incidents that obviously led to penalties, so I’m really happy with parts of the game and, as always, still parts of the game we can get better at, but it was a really good progression from last week to this week.”