Frank Lampard can use his 2019 ‘underdogs’ mentality with Coventry City, Derby County benefited massively

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Coventry City are preparing for their second Championship play-off campaign in three years this week following their excellent 2-0 win over Middlesbrough on the final day of the regular season.

The Sky Blues finished fifth in the second tier as a Jack Rudoni double saw them leapfrog Bristol City and they will now face Sunderland across two legs, with the first of those coming at the CBS Arena on Friday evening.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
1	LeedsLeeds	46	29	13	4	95	30	65	100
2	BurnleyBurnley	46	28	16	2	69	16	53	100
3	Sheff UtdSheffield Utd	46	28	8	10	63	36	27	90
4	SunderlandSunderland	46	21	13	12	58	44	14	76
5	CoventryCoventry	46	20	9	17	64	58	6	69
6	Bristol CityBristol City	46	17	17	12	59	55	4	68

Coventry’s rise under Frank Lampard has been sensational, but the pressure is now on to take those final steps and return to the Premier League after 24 years away from the division.

Their record over Sunderland is also strong, but form goes out of the window in the play-offs and Lampard knows that better than anyone after his only previous play-off campaign took centre stage in the 2018/19 campaign.

Frank Lampard was right about Derby County in 2019 as his team made history

It’s been seven years since the Chelsea and England legend was handed the Derby County job, his first in management. he quickly made a name for himself as his young team beat Premier League sides Manchester United and Southampton in cup competitions before finishing sixth in the Championship.

They faced Leeds United in the play-offs, with the ‘spygate’ saga, adding further fire to the clash.

The Whites took a 1-0 lead into the second leg at Elland Road, but what followed was 90 minutes of total football. With the Rams came from behind to win 4-3 on aggregate leading to scenes of jubilation in front of the away fans.

Lampard was incredibly proud of his players, but was quick to focus on one quality that they had. He said (via: The Daily Mail): “I heard a lot of people saying that we were crying about Spygate.

“I haven’t thought about Spygate for a long time and we played them and we prepared for it, we prepared and we got a result.

“We were 1-0 down, I said to the lads everyone had written us off. It’s 1/8 for them to go through or something, everyone says they’ve beaten us three times, but we made a little tweak, and it worked brilliantly but you need bravery on the ball and the lads showed it.”

Lampard continued: “The workrate through the year, players coming in, we’re not there yet, I watched Villa do this, but the players deserve it. The performance tonight, we were the better team over two legs, we should have had a penalty, but it was a brilliant performance from the lads.

“There’s work to do, this isn’t the end, we’re underdogs again and we’ll have a tough game against a brilliant Villa team, but we’re there.”

Frank Lampard needs to recreate this mentality with Coventry City

Coventry are by no means the same underdogs that Derby were compared to Leeds six years ago, but they are playing against side in Sunderland who were fighting for automatic promotion earlier in the season.

The Sky Blues have been inconsistent themselves in recent weeks. But they will feel as though they can inflict further pain on a Black Cats side who have struggled to show any signs of form for the last couple of months.

Lampard is a fantastic man-manager and his players will be primed and ready to go into the game at the CBS Arena will full focus on the task at hand. Sunderland will feel pressure after falling off the pace and the fact that they were able to settle for fourth may not have been the positive it should have been.

Coventry City have plenty of talent throughout the squad, and if they can exercise some of their demons from two years ago, then this year may just be their year to win promotion back to the Premier League.