Frank Lampard reveals the two things he demanded at half time to spark Coventry City comeback
Frank Lampard admitted his disappointment and frustration as Coventry City kicked off 2025 with a salvaged New Year’s Day point at Cardiff City.
The Sky Blues were awful in the first half when they conceded early from the Bluebirds’ first attack amid poor passing and defending before the game turned on its head in the first few minutes of the second when Tatsuhiro Sakamoto scored the equaliser before the home side were reduced to ten men when Callum Robinson was sent off with a straight red card for an elbow to Bobby Thomas’s face.
Put to him that it was a classic game of two halves, Lampard agreed: “Yeah, there’s a lot of circumstances in a game, I guess, but from our point of view the first half wasn’t good enough. It was too slow, there were too many mistakes and we just weren’t at it, so we have to understand that that’s not enough.
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“At half-time we spoke about it and the reaction at the start of the second half got us our goal. I wanted them to play forward quicker and to use what you have to use in this league, which is physicality and some form of directness, and that got us our goal. And then obviously the red card means that we have 40 minutes to try and win the game.
“We create enough to win it but it’s a typical story a little bit since I’ve been here, I think barring probably Millwall, with our expected goals every game are two plus or whatever, and we didn’t manage to take those chances. So there’s lots of consider and it is what it is and all part of our little story at the moment to keep trying to work and improve and understand things that we can get better at.”
Asked what he put the sluggish start down to, whether the heavy festive schedule was a factor, he said: “It’s the same for Cardiff isn’t it? I don’t put it down to anything because as much as I should have all the answers for you here, you do the preparation right and sometimes that’s down to the players to come out. And if you’re going be technically off your game, then you better be physically on your game. You can’t be both.”
Commenting on the turning point of the game when City scored and Cardiff lost a man shortly after, Lampard said: “Yeah, it does, you know, and you want to play and you’re grateful for the opportunity at that point – because I think it was a red card – to play against ten men. But you have to make the most out of it and I think at times we did.
“We created enough to score. I know they had a good chance on the break too but we didn’t take those chances and I don’t think we were as effective as we should have been to keep the momentum and to keep sustained attacks and choose the right decisions.”
He added: “We were aggressive with the subs trying to bring attacking players on but we couldn’t find the breakthrough, and the longer the game went on, to be fair to them, they defended in big numbers and made it difficult for us.”
