This team is special, says Lawrence | OneFootball

After missing the end of last season through injury, Emilio Lawrence has got his groove back. The 19-year-old got two assists in City’s 5-1 win over Oldham Athletic on Tuesday evening.

In our first EFL Trophy game of 2025/26, Mahamadou Sangare and Justin Oboavwoduo opened the scoring with Lawrence assisting both goals. Just four minutes later, Muir scored the third resulting in a 3-0 lead before the break.

In the early minutes of second half Oldham Athletic debuted the scoresheet after Luke Hannant scored his penalty.

MATCH REPORT | OLDHAM 1-5 CITY EDS

But the EDS did not let that phase them with Sangare and Muir both getting their braces at the end of the game with an outstanding 5-1 win over Oldham Athletic.

And after the game Lawrence was full of praise for his teammates.

“It just shows how special this team is,” began the EDS forward.

“We’ve got so much fight in us and eagerness to do well especially in this competition, it’s very hard to pick up results like tonight.

“So, I think tonight just shows how good of a team we are. And when we perform well, we’ve shown the danger we can cause.

WATCH: 8-minute highlights: Oldham 1-5 City EDS

“The manager [Ben Wilkinson] just said go out and express yourself and have belief in yourself which I just took on board. I did what I could to help the team and got two assists.”

Lawrence missed the end of last season through injury but still played an important role in winning the PL2 title, achieving 14 goal contributions in 18 matches.

Our win over Oldham was his third match back this season and was straight back into contributing to goals.

Lawrence explained that he still feels a bit “rusty” but says this game has given him confidence to help City push on in the EFL Trophy.

“I still feel a bit rusty but this was a good step forward just to get my confidence up and get the rust off a little bit. So, hopefully I can keep on with the momentum,”

“It would mean a lot [to progress out of the group stages]. It's definitely what we’re striving for.

“We put ourselves in a good position going forward, and I think especially after tonight we do believe in ourselves. And believe we can get out of this group so we’ll definitely keep on fighting going forward.”

City will be looking to take a lot of positives to take from the Oldham win into our next Premier League 2 fixture.

Our EDS take on Manchester United on Sunday the 31st of August at the Leigh Sports Village. The kick-off scheduled for 13:00 (UK) – with the game available to watch live on CITY+.