Sky Blues Boss has transformed the championship side from relegation candidate to promotion hope
Frank Lampard revealed how the visits to Pep Guardiola and Thomas Frank have affected the management methodology in Coventry City’s extraordinary championship sport.
The former Chelsea midfielder, who was responsible for circling at No. 17 in Coventry in November, oversees a dramatic turnaround, seeing Sky Blue now ranked fifth and solid in the playoffs.
Speaking to track and field, Lampard revealed that he had visited Brentford boss Thomas Frank before getting a job in Coventry and described the Danish manager as “so open and fun”.
“I’ve been to several of them (dinner with the coach). It was a really good opportunity to share ideas and talk together,” Lampard said. “Once, I visited Thomas Frank of Brentford. He was so open and fun.
Perhaps the most influential was the meeting with Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola, which took place a month before the Coventry position.
“I went to Manchester City for an interview with Rodri about a month before the job came out, and I had the opportunity to sit down with the PEP for 45 minutes, which was amazing,” Lampard explained.
The 46-year-old was particularly shocked by Guardiola’s coaching style and interactions with players during training, something he longed to imitate in his career.
Lampard continued: “I worked at Manchester City for a few days before I started coaching and I was surprised by his engagement with the players on the training ground.” “It’s exactly what I wanted, something like that. What is my version next to the player?
The impact of these interactions seems evident in Lampard’s work in Coventry, where he directed the team to win the best win in 55 years, winning eight of the last nine league games.
Sky Blue climbed 12 positions on the table since his appointment in November and now finds itself a chance to return to the Premier League for the first time since 2001.
Lampard has also been challenging the notion that elite players struggle as managers, describing it as a stereotype of “lazy”.
The Coventry boss told track and field that it was really lazy to say that great players wouldn’t be great managers. “You start to list some of them: Zidane, Ancelotti, Cruyff, Guardiola…it’s just a fallacy.”
Lampard’s management journey included a spell in Derby County, two Chelsea incumbents, serving in Everton before taking positions in Coventry. His current winning rate at Coventry is 55% of his highest in management career.
With Coventry pushing for promotion, Lampard hopes to avoid repeating his experience in Derby, losing to Aston Villa in his first season in management.
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