A Year And A Half After Leaving Chelsea: Lampard Signs For Coventry City

Sky Blues in a relegation battle

It has been 550 days since Frank Lampard last sat on the bench as a coach in a professional football game. When Chelsea FC drew 1-1 against Newcastle, the interim coach waited for things to come – but they did not see him as the future coach of the Blues. While his successor, Mauricio Pochettino, is no longer active with Londoners, Lampard is only now embarking on his next engagement; as head coach at Coventry City.

On Thursday, the English second division team announced the signing of former world-class professionals. Coventry is the fourth professional club on Lampard’s coaching resume after Derby, Chelsea and Everton and the second Championship team. He already has “first experiences” in the House of Commons, as Coventry owner and chairman Doug King put it. He had taken his time with the commitment. “We have a large number of highly qualified candidates, of which Frank is one,” King said mid-month.

At the beginning of November, Coventry parted ways with their long-time trainer Mark Robins. Under interim coach Rhys Carr, the Sky Blues only got two points from the last three games and remain in 17th place in the table. They finished the previous season in ninth place; a season before that they even came fifth. With striker Viktor Gyökeres, among others, they failed in the Premier League playoffs. In the current championship round, Coventry only got four wins from the first 17 games.

Lampard collected an average of 1.75 points in 84 games at Chelsea between July 2019 and January 2021; since 2000, only Guus Hiddink (1.52) in his second term in 2015/16 and Graham Potter (1.42) in 2022/23 have managed one worse record than London coach. At Everton, where he was responsible between his two Chelsea positions, Lampard recorded an average points average of 1.0 in 44 games and an average of 1.63 in 57 games at Derby in the second division plus the cup. Lampard knows “what it takes to be successful in the league,” explained Coventry boss King. Joe Edwards and Chris Jones will assist him.