In any league, a run of 30 points from a possible 36 is remarkably impressive. In one as competitive as the Championship, it is scarcely credible. This is a league that rightly prides itself on the unpredictability of its competition, where even runaway table toppers can be given a bloody nose by those scrapping against relegation.
The level of consistency Coventry City have found since Jan. 4, then, is worthy of note. At that time, a 2-1 defeat at Norwich City had the Sky Blues in 15th position. A season that seemed full of promise in August looked like it was going nowhere in particular by its halfway mark.
Twelve games later, Coventry find themselves right in the thick of the playoff race. They might have timed their charge up the table too late to snare one of the automatic promotion spots, the latter of which is occupied by Friday’s opponent Sheffield United, but with eight games left to play, they have that most precious commodity, the 12th man at this stage of the Championship season: momentum.
The catalyst for this? Well, it would seem to be Frank Lampard and his coaching staff. The former England international arrived at the CBS Arena (no relation to us, we promise) with a point to prove after disappointing spells at Chelsea and Everton. He found a squad who had been performing well — their non-penalty expected goal difference under previous boss Mark Robins had been the fourth best in the division — but where belief was faltering.
That has certainly been addressed. To hear star playmaker Jack Rudoni tell it, the Sky Blue Lodge might be one of the most joyous training grounds in England.
Bringing belief
“I think a lot of it is credit to the staff that have come in and they’ve really made everything enjoyable, but also been very clear for us about what they want,” Rudoni tells CBS Sports. “So everyone knows what we’re doing and they’ve just made training fun. Tthey’re just good people at the end of the day that you can speak to and enjoy your time with.
“That’s just brought us players closer, the wins even more so. The changing room is unreal at the moment. Everyone’s absolutely buzzing.”
Of course you don’t vibes your way to the most points in the Championship since the third round of the FA Cup and a per game tally in that time period bettered only by Liverpool. Lampard tweaked the system when Ephron Mason-Clark went down injured, moving to a back three that Coventry zigged out of lately without any obvious downturn in performances.
For Rudoni too, the formation has been tweaked somewhat, allowing him to play as an attack-minded eight in a 4-3-3. The possession has eked up and while slightly fewer shots are being taken they are, in xG terms, markedly better on average.
Sheffield United vs. Coventry City
- Date: Friday, Mar. 28 | Time: 4 p.m. ET
- Location: Bramall Lane — Sheffield, United Kingdom
- TV: CBS Sports Golazo Network | Live stream: Paramount+
- Odds: Sheffield United +110; Draw +240; Coventry +250
It is worth briefly dwelling on Coventry’s xG profile. After all, what is remarkable about the top numbers is how little they have changed. In 14 games under Robins, Coventry’s non-penalty xG difference per game was 0.46. In 28 games under Lampard, it is 0.46. Under the old boss, Coventry were somewhat underperforming their xG, with Lampard they are hitting it.
That the xG profile is broadly unchanged shouldn’t diminish what the new manager has achieved. Half an expected goal better than the opposition on average is the performance of a promotion contender. The Lampardian transition has been to help this team deliver output in line with their performances.
Anyway, there are other factors that data cannot fully capture. That is where the changes to the dressing room come in. A talented squad — any recruitment department that gets the likes of Viktor Gyokores into the Championship is doing something right — needed to see their qualities anew, to believe this was the team that many pundits had pegged as a promotion contender at the start of the season.
Rudoni, for instance, points to video analysis by assistant manager Joe Edwards that paid immediate dividends for him and Mason-Clark in last month’s win over Preston.
“Before that game, I remember Joe took me upstairs and watched clips back because Ephron was back in the team from injury. He showed me clips of [the 2-1 win at Hull in December] where Ephron crossed it to me and I scored a header. We were going through clips of me and Ephron working together in the whole game and saying like, just a reminder, he’s back in the squad, here’s the damage you guys can cause.
“Twenty minutes in, we scored like the exact same goal.”
Lampard’s aura
A Lampardian goal at that, a late dart into the box, attacking the space his teammates had crafted for him and a set defense had left for him. If anyone is going to relish those moments, it is a London lad who grew up worshipping Chelsea in the heyday of Super Frank, John Terry and the like. Rudoni was 10 years old when his team won the Champions League, now he is being coached by the captain from that famous night in Munich.
What was it like when he turned up to work one day to meet his boyhood idol?
“I just wanted to ask him so many questions. I have so much I want to learn off him, to know about how he got himself to the level that he reached,” he said.
“I think if you ask him, he’ll probably say I ask quite a lot of questions. But he’s up there with the best of players. Why would I not want to ask him all the questions?”
As if it couldn’t get any better, Rudoni isn’t just playing under Lampard. He’s playing the Lampard role under Lampard.
“To work with him and learn from the best is all I could ask for. He helps me with runs into the box, finishing around the box, finishing outside the box as well, telling me techniques he found working or little drills that he’d done, which he found helped him in games,” he said.
Speaking earlier this month, Lampard made plain that this job has been as much of a learning experience for himself as his players. The first flushes of a managerial career for the 2005 Ballon d’Or runner-up have been challenging, bright early moments with Derby County and Chelsea drifting away before a spell in charge of Everton where he addressed the looming threat of relegation in his first season but could not push the Toffees into higher climbs.
Since then, Lampard has made it his business to learn from the best: time with Brentford’s Thomas Frank, 45 minutes in the company of Pep Guardiola. It has paid dividends. A Coventry fanbase that would have been skeptical about any man succeeding Robins — who took the Sky Blues through League Two promotion, a League One title, a Championship playoff final and an FA Cup semifinal in his seven-year tenure — appear to have warmed to the new boss. The same is true of a playing staff who share Lampard’s thirst for self-improvement.
“As a group of lads, we buy into stuff and we want to learn,” says Rudoni. “We’re not a very egotistical group.
“They’ve come in and implemented their style and the way they’ve been has been excellent. We’ve just taken it on board as a group and a team and we’ve stuck together and we’ve worked at it. Once the wins came, they just kept coming and it was a great feeling. Hopefully they continue.”
If the three points do keep accruing, then Coventry will find themselves in the playoff places come the end of the season. Three more wins from there out and a 21-year exile from the top flight would be over. At the turn of the century, Coventry, faltering though they were, had been one of the grand old institutions of the top flight. A 34-year tenure had brought its fair share of memorable moments: winning perhaps the greatest FA Cup final ever in 1988, the great escape spearheaded by Dion Dublin nine years later.
Rising from the depths of League Two to the Championship playoffs has brought some of the mojo back to the CBS Arena. If Rudoni and company can go one step further than the class of 2023, they will be folklore heroes.
“I can see what it means to the fans and the passion they bring to the games and I’d be just delighted to do it for them as much as to do it for us and the team,” he says. “Obviously, they’ve been to Wembley a couple of times and it’s not won their way, so I’m hoping this will be the year.
“Let’s make it the year. I’m ready to go to Wembley and win.”
