Coventry City manager has seen his side take just one point from their last three Championship games and be replaced at the top the table by Monday night's opponents Middlesbrough
Frank Lampard at Charlton vs Coventry
Frank Lampard's Coventry City have dropped from the top spot in the Championship table for the first time in four months(Image: Simon Dael/Shutterstock)
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At the end of November, Frank Lampard was trying to keep a lid on the mild state of euphoria in Coventry. His team had just beaten Charlton Athletic to go ten points clear at the top of the Championship table after 18 games.
Bookmakers were not giving odds against the Sky Blues being promoted to the Premier League. They were seen as that much of a certainty.
Two and a half months later and Lampard’s men have to look upwards to find their next opponents. For the first time in four months, Coventry will start a game from a position other than at the summit. And Lampard is facing another fresh challenge in a managerial career that he is wonderfully determined to make a success of.
“It is a big test for us all to mentally accept the situation,” says Lampard, ahead of a mighty home encounter with leaders Middlesbrough. “There are different pressures on us now. That dial has changed. We have to stand up to that pressure.
“To try to get to where you want to get, there is normally some element of suffering. At one point, we had a lot go our own way and now we have to show a different side to ourselves. I’ve been around the game too long - I always felt there was a possibility of that.”
Coventry have taken only one point from their last three games - courtesy of a draw with lowly Oxford United - while Boro have won six on the spin. But when Lampard speaks to his players in the build-up to Monday night’s game at the CBS Arena, he can draw on his experience as one of the English game’s most celebrated players to help them cope with the dramatic switch of fortunes.
Frank Lampard poses for a photo with Dion Dublin
Frank Lampard and Dion Dublin have joined the Sky Bet/British Heart Foundation's Every Minute Matters campaign
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He explained: “My job is to help them understand that to have success, you are going to have a period where it gets a bit tough. The year I won the Champions League with Chelsea, the manager changed in February, we were going out against Napoli at 3-1 away, we were sixth or so in the Premier League and I was out of the team.
“There were lots of things that made me think this is not going to be the best year … but it ended up being my most successful. This is a slightly different story but there are similarities and the only way I know to get out of it is to stay calm and refocus.”
And Lampard - who was taking time out from promoting the Every Minute Matters campaign* to look forward to the meeting with Middlesbrough - admits that he does have to talk to his players about the mental demands, as so many of them have not been in this sort of situation.
He went on: “We have not got the feeling of … ‘oh, we are ten points clear and we are going to beat anyone who comes in front of us’. No, there’s a slightly different feel to it now.
Kim Hellberg celebrates a Middlesbrough win
Middlesbrough have stormed to the top of the Championship table under Kim Hellberg(Image: George Wood)
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"Do we have to speak about it? Yes. Because not many of our players have been involved in promotion campaigns where you have been the leaders for a period of time.
“There’s different pressure - pressure where you feel teams want to knock you. But the boys believe in themselves. And we need to tap into that.”
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