Lampard will not fall for the Tottenham trap

Frank Lampard has just watched Coventry produce a performance he liked against Newcastle. His first move in this press conference is to stop the word complete becoming a destination. He says there is still plenty to improve. That is the thread running through his answers before Tottenham. Enjoy progress but do not mistake it for security. You called the win over Newcastle a complete performance from your side, given we're only six league games into the season. How pleasing is it for you to have already seen your players reaching those levels? And I just wonder, what is the message now in terms of where you go from here? Well, I guess no performance, I guess, is absolutely complete. But on the evening, it felt from where we've been and where we're trying to get to that it was improvement and progressing well as a team. So there's much more that we can do and much more we can improve. When you analyse the game back, that's quite clear as well. But what we asked for from the players was to follow the idea that we wanted tactically, Yeah, absolutely. to give energy to the game, to start the game well. Lots of things that we asked for, the players delivered on. Every game for us in this league is really tough because of where we're at. We made it to the Premier League and we showed a really good side to us. Yeah, we've reviewed it and the players have seen it. They can see the good things, they can see the things we need to improve, so we're not... The praise is specific. He talks about the tactical idea, the energy and the start to the game. That gives the players something to repeat. A vague instruction to keep the momentum going is much less useful. Coventry's improvement has to be attached to behaviours. Otherwise, confidence becomes something they hope will turn up rather than something they can help create. The question points out that Coventry are three points ahead of Tottenham going into this fixture. Lampard does not treat that as permission to assume the newly promoted side should now be favourites. He sees quality in the opposition and expects their position to improve. So next up then, Tottenham on Monday. If somebody had told you before the start of the season that you and you promote a side would be... Three points ahead of them heading into this fixture. Would you have believed that or is that simply a reflection of the unpredictability of the league right now? Yeah, maybe. And, you know, it's hard to, it would have been hard to predict because of the strength of Tottenham's squad, et cetera. But this is Premier League football. I expect Tottenham to... To move up the table when I look at them playing, they've got a lot of quality in the team, a very, very good coach and the minute they sit where they sit, they're a strong squad no matter what. So I'm not analysing our position compared to theirs at all. We worry about ourselves and from the start that we had on paper to where we've got to with these two recent results, that makes us feel good. So there's not time for comparison but just to understand it. Tottenham are a very good side, specifically I saw that against Manchester United last weekend, so we have to be very aware of that. Yeah, has there been a difficult start to the season for them, still searching for their first wing, but clearly, as you say, a lot of quality within their side. What do you expect from them? Perhaps a point to prove on Monday? Yeah, I guess so, but so do we all. It's a relentless league, and yeah, they won't be happy with their start in terms of points for sure, with the squad that they have. Sometimes circumstances bring these things and it's important for all of us in our own jobs to try and correct it or improve all the time and they'll be very, very keen to do that at home against us, a promoted team. I'm sure they'll have a feel of confidence against us. That's fine. We have to believe in ourselves and go there with our own confidence in what we can do in the game. Put aside where they are, where they've been, what results they had and what they hadn't, analyse the game specifically and what we expect from it. And play with the same purpose that we played. That is not talking Coventry down. It is refusing to confuse a small early season sample with the difficulty of the next 90 minutes. Tottenham's poor start does not remove the quality of their players. Coventry's recent results do not make the task routine. The sensible ambition is to take their own confidence into the game without borrowing complacency from the league table. Lampard is pushed on the next three fixtures, all against teams below Coventry at this point. He calls it naive to see that as a straightforward opportunity. His example is Hull. The game people expected Coventry to win was one they lost. Looking at your upcoming fixtures, your next three games are against sides all below you in the table. So Spurs, then Fulham, then Sunderland to end October. On paper, is this perhaps the perfect opportunity to really continue building that momentum that you're on right now? I think it would be naive for me to say that. I think it's easy for you to say. It's just a fact of the table at the moment. It's been around too long to understand that games that people may expect you to win. We probably, of all our games this season, Hull was the one we were expected to win and we lost it. So we have to be wary of looking at it in that way. I understand what you're saying. We go to Tottenham, it's a very tough game. We have two home games against very tough teams. Premier League established teams that have been in this league. I know Sunderland from only last year, but they got into Europe. So they're very strong squads these next three games. So we have to not get carried away in anything other than what we get This is a useful warning because it applies beyond promoted teams. A fixture can look favourable on paper and still punish the wrong approach. The table records what has happened. It does not do the work of preparing for what comes next. Coventry should absolutely want to build on the recent wins. The mistake would be believing the next points are already waiting to be collected. Tatsuhiro Sakamoto gives Lampard another way to explain what improvement looks like. He praises the player's hunger, his training and what he brought when he came on. He also pushes back against the idea that a footballer's previous division should define his ceiling. On Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, we saw him on Monday and like you said, that worked really well. For that third goal, what role do you see him playing this year because of the attacking options you've got to your disposal this year with bringing in those extra wingers? Where do you see the conversations you've had with him? I know Tats really well. I love him as a player and as a person. He's a dream to work with. I've said that many times. And he also offers a lot. He trains every day with a real hunger to get into the team. I think he understands that there's competition, as every Premier League squad has. If you're playing with wingers, every team will have four wingers minimum, sometimes more. So the players all have to know that. But what Tats showed the other day was what Tatsy can bring the football club and more, and more, because we've seen it here ourselves already. And it's easy for people to do with a lot of our players is to go, oh, they're championship players, that's all they've ever been. And we'll only find out if they can play in the Premier League. That is a fair distinction. Premier League opportunity has to be earned. But it also has to exist before a player can show what he can do. A strong contribution is an argument for more trust. It is not a public guarantee of the next starting place. Lampard is keeping competition alive while recognising that performances must count. The follow-up is about the difficulty of leaving players out. Lampard says it is emotionally hard, but becomes clearer when the decisions are rooted in training, performance and behaviour. Is that one of the hardest things, being a manager, when you're having to Sakamoto play lots of minutes last year, reduce minutes this year, leaving players out of the matchday squad? Is that the toughest thing you find in this role? Yeah, it is tough. It's very personally tough if you have a heart, and hopefully I do, Yeah. because it's not so many jobs in sport, so it's slightly different in team sport. It's very specific that you can work a week behind the scenes and not take any part or be on the bench or a bit part in a weekend as you see it. So that is tough. But if I'm brutally honest, the more I do this job, Slightly easier it gets because when you're picking on merit and on training and on performance and on behaviour and how you are for a week and you try and stay true to that, those decisions some players can make them for you. Tatsu comes on and does that. It gives me a lot to think about for what the next starting team is or when I'm making subs in the future. So if you can be that cut and dried about it, then that's easier. But emotionally, of course, when the players are disappointed, I feel it too. Players do not have to enjoy being left out for a selection process to be credible. They need to know what can change it. That is why the Sakamoto example matters. The player who responds well and contributes gives the manager a different decision to make. For Coventry that is valuable competition rather than a problem to apologise for. Lampard's message before Tottenham is demanding but consistent. The recent wins are evidence that they can improve. They are not evidence that the difficult work is finished.