The secret behind Frank Lampard’s incredible Coventry City play-off charge
The secret behind Frank Lampard’s incredible Coventry City play-off charge
It’s fair to say that few Coventry City fans envisaged that the team would be in the position it is today in the Championship table when Doug King took the largely unpopular decision back in early November to call time on Mark Robins’ incredible tenure.
The announcement came the morning after Bonfire Night and certainly caused fireworks from the majority of Sky Blues supporters who, having eventually got over the shock and disappointment of losing one of the club’s greatest ever managers, sat back to see how Frank Lampard would fare with the same squad of players who had promised so much in pre-season, and yet delivered so little during the opening three months of the campaign.
Even the head coach admitted at the weekend that when he first came into the job the prospect of lifting the Sky Blues from two points off the bottom three to the play-offs “felt a long way away.” But here we are, just three months on and the team have taken an impressive 36 points from a possible 54 from 11 wins, three draws and just four defeats in the division.
So how has he done it?
Well, aside from the obvious tactical tweaks, formation changes and hard graft on the training pitch to get the players to function in the way he wants them to, in and out of possession, there’s arguably one overarching factor that’s made a huge difference – Lampard’s approach to man management.
That’s no disrespect to Robins, who was a master of the art himself over his seven and a half years at the club, but a fresh pair of eyes and engaging personality has managed to work wonders with a group of players who many felt weren’t quite as good as everyone had hoped when they first arrived in a big summer of transition in the transfer window.
City have been notoriously slow starters to seasons in recent years and we’ll never know if Robins would have turned things around if he’d been given time. But there’s no use in dwelling over the what ifs and what might have beens. The facts are that a change was made and the new man has done an incredible job.
Lampard’s standing in the game – a proper legend of English football with domestic medals and England caps as long as your arm – has probably helped, with many of City’s players understandably a bit starstruck when he first came in.
For the midfielders, he was one of their idols when growing up and to learn from such a talented player in his day must be quite something.
But it’s more than that. Lampard has a warm and caring personality. He’s a real people person and you could see that instant connection from the pictures of him talking to the players on his first day at Ryton.
You can go through virtually the entire squad and see how so many players have upped their games or discovered new-found confidence on the pitch.
Liam Kitching is a case in point. Out of the team for much of the first half of the season when he managed just seven league appearances, the centre-back was put back in against Norwich in early January and been ever present since.
Jamie Allen is another who was struggling for game time and then given his chance and grabbed it with both feet, earning rave reviews from Lampard – and many fans who had written him off – for his contributions.
Ephron Mason-Clark has been revitalised with five goals and four assists, Ellis Simms has started to use his strength and power to bully defenders and added four goals, Brandon Thomas-Asante had a little flurry of scoring three in four games, Oliver Dovin has gone back into the side and not looked back and so the list goes on.
And the latest player to rediscover his form is Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, who Lampard picked out for praise from very early on and who had arguably his best game of the season at the weekend with an assist and outstanding winning goal at Oxford.
You only have to look at the pictures of the tactile Lampard congratulating and encouraging the players to see his connection with them. And long may it continue because it’s producing brilliant results.
Leave a Reply