Frank Lampard makes Blackburn Rovers admission as Coventry City find way to return to top spot

Frank Lampard gave credit to Blackburn Rovers for showing his Coventry City players that they are not going to go out and win games comfortably or by a high scoreline every week.

The Sky Blues went into Saturday’s match off the back of three wins in the space of eight days prior to the international break, having won 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0 against Birmingham, Millwall and Sheffield Wednesday. But their latest opponents made life difficult for them until two quick-fire second half goals in the space of three minutes from Victor Torp and Brandon Thomas-Asante turned the game in Coventry’s favour, sending them back to top of the Championship with what turned out to be a comfortable 2-0 win and impressive fifth consecutive clean sheet.

Asked what he thought of his players’ first half performance and what he had said to them at half-time to help change the game, Lampard said: “I think it was all credit to Blackburn in the first half. I thought they came here with an aggressive organisation about them and were happy to be man for man, pretty much all over the pitch.

“They made it difficult for us to get our usual kind of clean build and to try and get control and territory and stuff, so I credit them.”

He added: “We just made a bit of a tactical tweak at half time to help the players, and it did help, and I think it’s important also for our players to not expect that every game we’ll have all the possession and win by three, four or five because it doesn’t happen in football.

“So it was a good test for all of us and even the fans to understand that it’s not always easy. Stick with us and yeah, it was very good to not be at your best and then to go and score two big goals. And sometimes you rely on your players to do things like that, and Rushy to make a great save in the first half. And then I thought he actually saw the game out pretty comfortably. So lots of things to be happy with in a really tough match.”

As for returning to top spot in place of early promotion rivals Middlesbrough and the psychological boost that comes with that, the head coach is reluctant to get carried too away: “Yeah, it’s good, and I think you have to enjoy it because the flip side of that is not nice, you know. That’s football and yeah, I love it for the fans. I love it. And they can get excited and our job is to keep them excited and keep working hard.”

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