Frank Lampard outlines Coventry City weakness in wake of cup defeat vs Millwall, ‘that’s disappointing’

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The Carabao Cup second round clash with Millwall ended in defeat for Coventry City and Frank Lampard spotted something he really didn’t like about his team’s performance.

Coventry City have made a brilliant start to the new Championship campaign. The Sky Blues are currently unbeaten in the league with two wins and a draw, and have scored 12 goals in their last two matches there.

The record-breaking 7-1 win over QPR at the weekend was a real warning to Coventry’s league rivals that they will be a force to be reckoned with in the league this season once again.

But, for Frank Lampard and his men, their Carabao Cup run comes to an end already, with Millwall winning 2-1 on Tuesday night to dump the Sky Blues out of the competition.

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Frank Lampard’s reaction to Coventry City defeat

A goal from Massimo Luongo gave Millwall the lead going into half-time, before Kamarl Grant bagged his first goal for the Lions to double their advantage on 76 minutes. A Haji Wright penalty gave Coventry hope late on, but they came away from The Den empty-handed in the end.

Discussing the nature of the defeat, Lampard said: “It was two set-pieces. I don’t think we were under any pressure from them at all other than that. So, that’s disappointing to concede two set-pieces.

“Then we’re pushing to try and score, late in the game and couldn’t quite do enough.”

Admittedly, Coventry were the better team in the second half and pushed hard to get back into the tie, but it wasn’t enough to carry them through.

“You could see that, and again, that’s why it’s frustrating to concede in the way we did, because if you don’t, and it’s still 1-0, then you fancy us at the end as you saw,” Lampard added. “If there’s one team really pushing, it was us and that’s just how it was.”

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Championship promotion push has to be Coventry City focus

Before the season began, we tipped Coventry to be a candidate for promotion in our Championship preview, and it’s clear that that’s the focus for Lampard this year. Going out of the cup is never desirable, but the Coventry boss rotated heavily and it cannot come as a surprise.

On the team selection, which included eight changes, Lampard said: “We made changes because we have to, because we don’t have a big squad and we’re early in the season, players need to either come in and show what they can do and take the opportunity, or we have to be careful at this stage for the players to be able to play three games in the week.

“Maybe that’s some part of why performance looked as it did and that’s for me and us to digest a little bit and we need to improve on that front and if players come in, they have to keep the level and we didn’t quite do that today.”

Interestingly, Lampard recently said he wants to sign more players to build a ‘strong squad’ that can compete this season. Perhaps this cup exit is the wake-up call the Coventry City hierarchy need to hand him those transfers before deadline day.

Lampard now turns his attention to this weekend’s game against Oxford United. On that, he added: “We’ve had a good start in the league, and we need to carry it on and this can’t break the rhythm, and I’ve just said it to the players in there, we have to get back to where we were before the game.

“This game has now gone, and we have to move back on to the league this weekend.”