Why Frank Lampard's Coventry Will Be BRILLIANT This Season 🌟

We need to speak about Coventry's attacking play from the weekend and the beautiful variety of goals that they scored. In this video we are going to analyse all four of their non-penalty goals, identify a few crucial stats to go with them and why I think verticality is such a crucial part of Frank Lampard's new attacking tactics. Let's get straight into it. So let's start with Coventry's first goal of the game against Derby on Saturday. We're using the media drawer as part of the JLA tactics board package and you can get your hands on it using the link in the description down below. We're trying to take our analysis to the next level. I think this tool certainly allows us to do exactly that. So let's begin with the first goal. It's a free kick and you can see two players are over it. Torp, who we know of course puts the ball into the box and also Matt Grimes as well. Let's skip it forward just a moment. You can see Matt runs over it and then this ball here goes into this area of space and we can highlight the area that it goes into. It sits just in front of the goalkeeper there, straight into the path of the goalkeeper, Derby's goalkeeper Zetterstrom and that's an absolute nightmare. It is a goalkeeper's worst nightmare as they're forced to make a split second decision. Do they stay put and try and save from almost their goal line or do they come and try and collect the ball? And Zetterstrom as we know him, we'll skip on just a second to see what happens, but of course, Derby commentary fans, you know what happens. He comes and tries to collect it, he misses it and of course Bobby Thomas sticks it in the back of the net. Slightly, fortunately, but we'll come on to that in just a moment because I think the free kick itself is really, really clever. Really, really clever because so often this type of free kick, this type of position, a player is probably looking to float it into this position here. You're looking to probably aim in that bulk of the pitch where, and you can see, you know, you've got a lot of Derby players, a lot of commentary players quite bunched together in that position, looking to run into that space, but by putting it in the goalkeeper's path, like I said, it's forcing the goalkeeper to make a decision and it's the goal scorer, Bobby Thomas, who like I said, slightly fortunate maybe with the finish, but his movement is exceptional. It is genius movement from Bobby Thomas seconds before the delivery comes in. I can actually show you this because if we go back just a moment, let's go back to the hand raise here. You can see Torp is raising his hand. That could be that he's going in the near post or using this and it could be something that this has been worked on potentially, you'd like to think so from that perspective. It looks like something that has been well rehearsed of course. You can see here, we can zoom in on Bobby Thomas so we can know exactly where he is. We can do that by magnifying, actually, if we magnify the majority of the penalty box here, let's go a little bit bigger and you can see Bobby Thomas here where I've got my cursor and if we skip it just a second, you can see and make this really clever run just subtly forward slightly and again, nobody's paying attention to him. He starts actually, if we go back again, so you can see he starts sort of in that bunch of player and then just as Matt Grime runs over and doesn't take the free kick and Torp decides to lift his hand and almost signal what he's going to do, he makes that run just in front of that derby player, getting himself on side and then of course he's got that free run into space that we've spoken about. Almost just making this really clever run into this position here because again, nobody's stopping him, nobody is marking him and that's because of that late run that we saw him do. So Derby's players are just waiting for the ball to come in and he makes this really subtle run forwards. Does he do this because of the signal and the one hand raise that we spoke about? Potentially, and only of course Frank Lampard and Coventry will know that, but Derby couldn't react and they didn't react in this new position. Like I just mentioned here, he's totally alone once again, he's not spotted and now there's a free run into the path of the ball. Perhaps slightly fortunate with deflection coming off his head but it's the clear movement of Bobby Thomas inside the box that earns him that luck and players can earn themselves luck. In this position here he's done exactly that, he's got himself into that position with really subtle intelligent movement and the free kick in from Torp is a really really good one. It's got pace, it's a very convicted effort exactly where he wants to put it. I think it's a really really well worked set piece goal and like I said at the start it's about the variety of Coventry's goals in this game that I absolutely adored and we saw that with this example here and we're going to go through all four goals but I've got a few stats for you. Coventry created an open play xg of 2.45 against Derby on Saturday with a total of 1.42 xg being created from set pieces. So a heavy focus on chance creation from set pieces and eight of their 20 shots they had in this game came from set pieces. Seven if you exclude the penalty that of course had you right converted. So a lot of focus on set pieces and we're not done there because there's another type of set piece we're going to analyze in just a moment but that was a really really well worked goal and definitely one that Frank Lampard and Coventry have worked on for some time I think. Now this is Coventry's third goal of the game to make it 3-3. What a goal fest this was. It's obviously a long throw and again it's the variety of Coventry's goals that made them so effective on Saturday and will make them effective as the season progresses using those fine margins to their advantage. It's not just the team scrapping for the odd goal here and there at the bottom end of the table. It's the teams with the aspirations at the top end also trying to utilize this power and once again we're drawing our attention to Bobby Thomas because his positioning once again inside the box here is absolutely fascinating. Let's take a look at him. Let's take a look at him and we can do that by highlighting him in this position here and you can see him just operating. In fact I'm going to make this almost as big as how much room he has in the box. Nobody is picking up Bobby Thomas once again in the penalty area and he just decides against actually sort of looking into this position here and we can sort of see how many players are sort of crowded in this area. Actually further than that you can see here it's quite a congested area and from a long throw of course people are looking at this area trying to stick it on the goalkeeper but actually this long throw is about highlighting Bobby Thomas and his movement and his positioning inside the box because I'm not sure if he's just stunk, literally stunk and they just decided not to mark Bobby Thomas. They didn't want to do it or they just weren't paying attention from set pieces in this game because he just made the simplest decisions and it worked every single time. He just took a step back. He didn't get involved with that congested area. He took a step back and waited for that ball to come in. Bobby Thomas had five touches inside the opposition box. That was one less than Carlton Morris and five more than Derby's other attacker Caden Jackson. Of course we also know he had three shots during the game and had more on target than Derby's strike force combined but again it's the simple stuff. He's not over complicating it. He's not just going to try and make it at you know an absolute congest fest if you like in the six yard box. He's taking a step back. The header is great. It forces a save from the Derby goalkeeper and it leaves Thomas Asante to tap it in and again if we skip forward to that tap in if we can of course the ball comes in. The header is good. It's a great save but this here from a Derby perspective is unacceptable. I mean they're all ball watching. You can see here just from their body language. They're all just looking at the ball. They're also just waiting for their goalkeeper to save it. There's only one player alert to that and I'm also going to praise as much as I'm going to criticize that body language and that lack of almost awareness or determination to try and help their goalkeeper out from a Derby perspective. I'm full of praise towards the Coventry player here as well Thomas Asante because he won't get an easier finish of course but he's assuming nothing and that's also something that's really quite important. He probably doesn't know whether he's onside in this moment but he's alert. He's ready for the rebound anyway if it does come and of course it does and the goal is given. It's nothing overly technical. It's not flashy. It's so common when we analyze games of football and we try and overcomplicate things and we break these games down. This comes down to being just very very aware assuming nothing and getting the basic spot on and again you know Bobby Thomas is an example of that too. He doesn't just rush into the box ready to cause a problem in the in the middle of the in the middle of the six-yard box. He takes a step back knows the throne's going to come in. Nods it. Unlucky not to score but again a Coventry player assumes nothing and then taps it in the back of the net and there's no pressure because I don't know whether or not Darby are just not bothered about doing it or they are I imagine assuming he's offside but you've got to assume nothing in this because the Coventry forward doesn't and he takes advantage. Now this goal shows us how comfortable Coventry were in playing vertically. You can see this move starts with Coventry comfortable in their own half and you can see there isn't really a great deal of passing options forward. You've got a player comfortable in possession here. He could go into midfield maybe but he's surrounded by Darby players. Essentially he could try and go with an ambitious effort over the top to Jack Radony but again if this is misplaced and it's not something that works out and it's intercepted or it's cut out then you've got one two three four five six Darby players off and running looking to launch a counter-attack. So that wouldn't be wise and that's something that I think Darby did quite well. They knew that they probably wanted to pass into this play here. Again realistically from this your most common pass is into Kitchen who receives the ball. If we go forward in just a second he does receive the ball and he goes with straight away a really strong piece of body language looking up and you can see he's trying to fire it over to the bombing right wing back over here. Instead he does he finds a brilliant pass in behind and suddenly Coventry are through and Darby are on the back foot and we'll skip on to that in just a moment when I tell you that Coventry made 58 long passes in this game. Interestingly more than Darby who are predominantly quite a direct team you'd say. 21 of these long passes were accurate and they made a total of 239 forward passes during the 90. So the idea was to keep this Darby back line honest and keep them as honest as possible because if you look at it and you look at their back line you've got a lot of aging players. You've got a team especially defensively that aren't blessed with much pace so any balls fired quickly in behind were going to force them to make quick decisions in uncomfortable scenarios and this is an exactly you know this is an example of just that and if we actually go back to this last screenshot here and we magnify an elder who's meant to be marking this run you can see he's not looking at the run he's actually just looking at the ball his body language if we sort of show using an arrow where he's looking he's looking here you know he's looking over here he's not looking at the player making the run behind him and you can see there's clearly a run just on the outside of him that he's not paying attention to and that's not what they want if you get a foot if you're getting in a foot race with these Darby players you're probably going to win if you're a Coventry attacker because they are blessed with pace and that was something that Frank Lampard clearly identified right let's skip forward just a second to when this ball goes into the box it's a great touch the ball goes in you can see can we do it yeah this is about right you can see he's got on the end of it he's got himself inside the box Mason Clarke has ran free I love how they use their wide players by the way the ball across into the back post is perfect sometimes you can sort of lack a bit of composure you've done the hard but you've touched it down you've made the run you've got into the box and then you sort of fluff your effort he doesn't he stays really really composed I love the way Coventry use their wide men because as much they want to be a threat in the wide areas and hugging the touchline at times with that brilliant pace and technical ability that they've got they also want to attack the box and the header is a great header as well now the individual heat maps I'm going to show you shows us just how often Coventry's attacking players attack the box against Darby there pretty much wasn't a spec of the opposition area that Coventry didn't cover from an attacking perspective Coventry had 37 touches inside the opposition box against Darby with their front four having 24.6% of the team's total touches during the 90th and actually these are all of the touches made by Coventry attackers and the graphic also visualizes the amount of shots taken by Coventry's front four as well Gennaro Doni had one shot Mason Clarke two shots with two on target Thomas Assante four shots with one on target Haji Wright also four shots and two on target some really really healthy numbers there and again it reinforces the point that this front line want to cause opposition problems in the most dangerous areas and of course we know the most dangerous area of the pitch is the opposition box and they attacked it consistently throughout this game against Darby and they reap the rewards so this is the final Coventry goal the one that made it 5-3 and the build-up is actually sort of similar it does have similarities to the last one it's obviously Kitching again playing the ball directly into Darby's box going vertical not being afraid to play long we're so used to a player in this position holding on to the ball maybe passing it back in fact to be fair I'm not going to dig out Torbjörn we know what he does eventually he puts a fantastic ball into the back of the net but he's almost signaling you can't see he's at a shot here but he's almost signaling here go back to the centre back go back the other way and just keep hold of the ball but he doesn't he doesn't do that he drives with the ball for a few seconds longer before and he could go out here again in this position you can see there's a point from the player there to maybe go out wide maybe pass it into him he could do that he could go into midfield here he could even go and stretch the play and and pass it on to the the right back by switching play but he doesn't instead he knows where Darby are hurt most and that is by putting a ball into the box straight into the penalty area not taking any chances but getting it in the most threatening position Darby made 143 passes into the final third in this game registering 10 key passes which was six more than Darby County Thomas Asante does so well and if we skip it on a bit further Thomas Asante does so well to keep the ball in play he could maybe let it go out I know this is the 80th minute so you know perhaps he doesn't want to do anything but to keep this ball in play because he doesn't want Darby to launch to attempt an equalizer but I'm going to look at it from an attacking perspective and say it's really well kept hold of and he's just kept it in a very very dangerous position from a Darby perspective and Torp on the edge of the box has so much space and what I do love about Torp here before he takes the shot if we look here when he's asking for the ball it's so easy for him to sort of just go no I'm going to join in here or I'm going to make this run here but he doesn't he doesn't get over excited and that's the sign of a very very well matured midfielder who's extremely intelligent he doesn't do that he doesn't get overexcited he knows the cutback is on Darby are chasing the ball he takes two touches to get out of his feet and he finishes in the bottom corner it's an exceptional finish but again it's very very clever stuff the whole move is smart it's controlled and it's full of quality and that summarizes Coventry's performance perfectly against Darby County on Saturday really exciting stuff hopefully we've done a good job of analyzing those goals in this game and showing you why I think Coventry's attacking tactics are going to make them a real force this season till next time I'll see you soon