Frank Lampard is back in management and proving people wrong.
He arrived to little fanfare at Coventry City back in November, tasked with the near-impossible challenge of replacing the immensely popular Mark Robins.
Scepticism was high after challenging tenures for him at Everton and Chelsea, but Lampard is proving his credentials in steering the Sky Blues back in the right direction after a shaky start to the season.
“The performance data with Coventry before he came in did suggest that Coventry should be top six, but they weren’t getting the results under Mark Robins at that point.
“It was a sad end for him, but Frank has got them doing what the data suggested they should be doing.
“They’ve shown they can grind out results as well, like they did at Sheffield Wednesday a couple of weeks ago. Wednesday played well, but Coventry came away with the win.
“He’s got them back into a 4-3-3 now, and Matt Grimes is huge in that midfield after signing from Swansea in January. They’ve won three games on the bounce since he came in and he’s making his presence felt in that midfield.
“Jack Rudoni has been excellent as well, and Ephron Mason-Clark has been doing the business, which you kind of think he would be able to do after switching from Peterborough.”
Winger Mason-Clarke, who has thrived under Lampard, admits the head coach carried a real aura about him when he first arrived at the club.
“I would definitely be lying if I said that [awe] wasn’t there at first,” Mason-Clark told Sky Sports. “But that quickly faded when you just got into management mode.
“Learning the things that he wants to implement for the team has been easy to understand. Working under him and Joe [Edwards, Lampard’s assistant] has been really positive for me and for the team as well.
“Every day is as competitive as the last. You see that all the time, whether it’s the rondos or the playthroughs we do. Everybody’s just on it every single day.
“At the moment we’re just trying to fine-tune the small things in our performance. That is something that he concentrates on a lot with the details of how we’re playing.”
