After being handed a footballing lesson on matchday one by Arsenal, Coventry City boss Frank Lampard is drawing inspiration from Leeds United’s survival bid.
Leeds’ Premier League season gets underway on Saturday afternoon against Nottingham Forest. The Premier League’s curtain-raiser saw the champions take on the Championship’s top dog.
Unsurprisingly, Arsenal cruised to a routine victory over Frank Lampard’s Coventry City at the Emirates, kickstarting their title defence with ease.
Frank Lampard drops Leeds United comment as he reacts to Arsenal 3-0 Coventry City
Not a soul outside of Coventry would have predicted anything other than a comfortable Arsenal win on Friday night.
The Gunners romped into the lead like a side confident of being able to retain their title, scoring twice before the half-hour mark through Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz.
After half-time Martin Odegaard deservedly got on the scoresheet when his mis-hit shot squirmed past Carl Rushworth.
The Sky Blues’ were handed a pretty strong dose of reality by the Gunners. But, for manager Frank Lampar,d he takes comfort in knowing Leeds did similar early on last season.
Speaking to Sky Sports post-match, Lampard noted Leeds’ struggles at the Emirates.
“Every game won’t look like that. This is an Arsenal team buoyed by where they are at the moment. This was a team that was built and coached to get to this,” Lampard told Sky, via Yahoo.
“I’m more concerned about the personality. I think we were a little bit timid in the first half. It’s hard. Leeds came here and lost the first game 4-0 [second game and it was 5-0, Frank come on] and stayed in the Premier League. Players will get better, fitter. There are adjustments for us to make and we’ll make them.”
Coventry City looked a million miles off a team that Leeds United and co should be worried about
Lampard is right and I’ll get onto that. But, that performance tonight will have surely opened his eyes to the fact that this iteration of his Coventry team will go down with a whimper.
They need to adapt and fast, and their midfield is nowhere near good enough.
That being said, his comments referencing Leeds are proof that he is aware of the task at hand. We were battered by Arsenal last season and stayed up, but the key difference is we adapted mid-season from how we set up at the start.
Will Lampard adapt?
Does he have the personnel to do what we did?
Two questions I don’t have a definitive answer to yet. But, this was a wake-up call that Coventry probably needed sooner rather than later.
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