''We want to go up automatically'' | Frank Lampard on Coventry culture & turning player to coach

Frank, thanks for joining us. I know it's a busy time. The schedule is a little bit crazy, but can we just go back to that playoff semi-final defeat at Sunderland and what did you do straight after that that's allowed you to have the season that you're having right now? Well, there was a lot of disappointment. I think we managed to achieve in the last, in the second half of the season to make that big run into the playoffs. I think to play really well over both games doesn't make it any easier playing well, but in reflection you can be quite happy with the strides we've taken, but obviously the disappointment was huge. And I felt really a lot for the players, I really felt for them because they gave everything, and the fans and the club, everything. So that burden is there when it's fresh. But I've been in this game a long time, I understand successful moments, I understand difficult moments. And when you reflect and go see what we did, it was more about how can we come back, how can we have another go, how can we try and improve in every way. So I think it was a good reflection time over the summer for me. We didn't make huge changes to the squad over the summer, probably relative to what other teams did, more business etc. But we kept a lot of the same group and we just said right from pre-season let's work hard. I don't think we expected what we've got, but we were very determined to just go again. But having experienced a playoff setback before that Sunderland game, because you experienced it with Derby in the final itself, did you react in a similar way? Because the first time you had experienced it, it probably would have been harder than the second time you've experienced it. I found them both tough. I mean after Derby, obviously left and went on to Chelsea from there, so I didn't go back as such. It was a similar feeling if I'm honest, because this job, the biggest difference from player to manager is that you feel the burden of responsibility so much. So I had a really good relationship with the owner at Derby and similarly here at Coventry and I know how much passion they both have for their clubs. I understand the fan bases of both clubs and you feel that. So there's a selfish thing too, for yourself you want to win matches and have success. But you know the Derby one, we come up against a really strong Aston Villa team and the difference is in the final with that and that loses you the game. And this one, it just felt like, because we'd only been in since early December, the strides that we'd taken, I quite quickly felt a sense of pride in the work done from the group to get that close and I know we were very unlucky in that semi-final. So it's my job to not be too despondent. I'm the first one that has to react and react hopefully positively. So by the time we come back to pre-season it was okay, let's go again, where can we improve, what can we do, staff, players and we have improved. Definitely and you don't really want to go through the play-offs again as a manager, as a coach would you, because of what you've experienced. You want to get there straight away this time. Well now I do. If I had to set out my sights at the start of the season, this league is very difficult, let's be really brutally honest about it. Parachute teams come down with a huge, huge advantage over others financially and now this year we probably have four parachute teams with Sheppard United remaining in the league. We also have maybe two teams that came up from league one that are acting like, not parachute teams, but you know, so they're having a right go. And fair play, this is great, this is part of the championship story, it's exciting for everyone watching, but for us we knew that it would be a challenge to try and get into play-off positions again. So what we've done in the first half of the season has been great because it's work coming together and we've got ourselves in this position and of course now we want to go up automatically because of where we sit, but I also know there's 20 games to go, there's so many points to fight for, so there's a long way. So I try not to get drawn into your questions here. I'm like, what's the next game, what's the next game, what's the next game, rather than the big picture, but we're in a good place. No, I know that, but when you think the big picture is it's been 25 years since Coventry were last in the Premier League, you would have played against them. Do you remember any of those moments? Well, I remember making my debut against Coventry at West Ham, I came on with Gordon Strachan, he was 35 or so and I was 17 and I've got the picture in my office with Harry Redknapp bringing me on and it was a nice moment, but of course I remember growing up watching Coventry win the FA Cup final, one of my first FA Cup finals in my memory, playing against Coventry and just having an understanding that they were an old League One, you know, Premier League team, as we call it now, Division One. So, I followed the story from the outside, but also now I'm doing this job more importantly, I feel the desire, I feel the tension, the fans, I want to get back there, quite rightly, and we're probably fed into that by having this start of the season, so everyone's getting excited and we just have to stay very focused. It's been through a lot though, hasn't it? This club has been through a lot and I was thinking of 2019 and it didn't seem to be that long ago, but it is considering what's happened in the world since 2019, League One, ground-sharing, eventually come back, lockdown, and you've been through a lot as well, so it's like as if some things just align, don't they, at the right time for different reasons, but it gives you the perfect opportunity. Yeah, and I haven't lived that Coventry story, but I'm fully aware of it and you can feel it and it's in parts of it are a great story, you know, the disappointment, the sadness of the situations that come down, I didn't live that, but some people who work here are fans and they lived it, so, and now I'm in touch with the fans, so I understand how they feel and what we're trying to do, I suppose my detachment from that is to try and prove the real positivity, because when a club's had such a hard time and even close playoff, final, close FA Cup semi-final in recent years, not to mention even going down to League Two, you can have a feeling of, oh, we didn't quite do it and we might fail again, you know, and I really want to try and make sure us in the house, we try and stay really positive with, you know, just a practical football nature of it, you know, we want to make these fans happy, it'll be amazing because of what the story is, but we have to sort of probably take emotion out of it and just focus on what's really in hand, because, but what we do know is that if we do manage to get something really positive this year, then it's just a beautiful part of all the story and the fighting back of this club from where it was. And how would that make you feel? Because you've been through it as well, you've been through the mill in that space of time too. Well, in the jobs that, you know, we look at Derby and then you get Chelsea and then you go to Everton and then back to Chelsea. Yeah, sure, I think with management, and I think he's never been more clear with management of what is success and what's relative, I mean, my jobs with Derby when I went there was to try and, you know, we had some financial problems just to try and make the playoffs and get them, it's understandable you could not win a final and you have to understand as a football manager, I went to Chelsea and we made the Champions League, got to an FA Cup final, so my story is different and you learn from good and you learn from things that don't go your way, but I've been long enough as a football player, had lots of success, fortunate to be part of great good teams, but I also remember the things that didn't go right, but I part them now, all I think about, what I do out there every day with these players, what's my messaging, what's the training and how can I be a leader that hopefully takes us to where we want to get to and I don't reflect too much on too much other stuff. I remember what you were like as a player, people remember what you were like as a player, good player, but were you easy to manage? Would you have liked to have managed you? Yeah, generally I was, yeah, I was quite low maintenance, I was fortunate in a way because the big parts of my career at Chelsea, I played very very regularly, all players want to play, I know that even more now, so I was good with that, but what I did, I just trained hard, I didn't like to go to manager's office too much and I think I was, I would like to think most of my managers would say that I was pretty easy, most, not all, but now I understand it as well and I'm on this side and I think the game's changed as modern players, there's different demands, there's different situations, there's agents around players and family and expectations and it's all slightly changed from my era and I'm not being a dinosaur saying my era was great and we were different. Has it become harder? For management terms I would say yes because there's, you know, every squad now, we hold a squad, it's quite a smaller squad in this league but it's still 20 or so players and a tough part of my job is picking 11 and upsetting another 10 every week, it's a really tough part of your job, you know, it's like, you know, your job, another job, you get asked to go to work right through the week, all the tough stuff and then the good bit comes and you're taken out of it, that's a horrible feeling and I have to deliver that news. So you've got to try and work as hard and as positively as you can day-to-day so people are enjoying this environment, enjoying coming to training and I think we've done a good job of that because we've got a very good culture here of a group that's together, they work really hard out there and they've seen the success that that can bring so far this season. Do you think Coventry suits you and you suit Coventry? Can a personality match a club 100%? Well at this moment it feels yes because I'm very happy here and hopefully the club are happy with me because of where we sit and we've worked and I'm not taking this all for me for sure because the staff that I came in with, with Chris and Joe coming in together and the players and everyone in the building who has stepped up and seen this sort of curve that we've been on, everybody deserves credit for that but I also have to understand that the minute we drop or we get sort of too confident, oh I love Coventry and Coventry loves me, that's not a good situation. My job unfortunately brings constant tension because you're always reflecting on the last one if it wasn't great but really concerned about getting it right for the next one and that's the life I live. Said that I am happy, I'm very happy at this club and to answer your first question the balance of it feels pretty good and hopefully at this point we serve each other. I just wonder from a wider point of view because obviously you're here and we've seen Liam Rossini going at Chelsea, a club you know so well about, seen Michael Carrick interim at the moment at Manchester United and there's been this discussion about whether an English coach will ever win the Premier League, how hard would that be to achieve just on a wider scale? Well I wish all coaches well in this league because I know the demands of it and specifically, not specifically, of course I wish English managers well because I am one and I understand it and how hard it is, well firstly you have to be a club that has the tools to win the Premier League and not many clubs have that if you only look at the last years and you go on English manager hasn't won the Premier League but you look back a lot of those years when Manchester City have been dominant where Chelsea were dominant with foreign managers sort of in my era so there's a lot of that you have to have the tools as a manager to be able to do it because the success you can have will only be relative to what you're working with so you have to be at the minute you look at it and go Liverpool and Man City had that dominant period where you felt that only they would win the league now Arsenal are absolutely in that equation so an English manager has to do what everybody else has to do has to work in every job they've got to try and move up the ladder to potentially get that chance and we've got some good quality English managers truly believe that and I think it's worth over analyzing good coaches doesn't matter where they're from they come and do a good job and they do the they maximize themselves at the jobs that they're working at whether they're English or foreign etc we're blessed that we've got the greatest leagues in the world in my opinion the Premier League is the best and this championship is as exciting as any league in the world so let's just enjoy it and not focus too much on the individuals but the one thing you said you there is a core of good English coaches right now which you are one of them it does seem that you are being given these opportunities to develop and grow and try and do something really special yeah and but then the reality is that now a lot of the clubs in Premier League or in the championship are owned by foreign ownership of sporting directors that could be from anywhere and there's a big pool of coaches at every job that probably comes up that in line waiting for that job so us English coaches we just have to work hard I don't think I don't even get too caught up in the perception and why do we get a hard time or why do we get this opportunity you work hard in this game as I know it I worked hard since I started kicking a ball very young to try and have a good playing career and then a managerial career and as I've got a little bit wiser I've realized not to get too caught up in arguments of who gets this opportunity and why or whatever just focus on what you've got in front of you but it is such a hard job to get there's only 92 I was talking to your press officer about it and once you lose your job it's hard to get back onto it again isn't it that cycle yeah it can be it can be because that's the life that you we we choose to live what I'm happy about being here is that I enjoy coming to work so I've got some really good people around me and a good group of players I love working with these players because they make me laugh every day they got them really well and they work really hard out there and they want to do well for this club it's kind of all you can ask for either way in what way do they make you laugh because they have such a good laugh together down in the dressing room I hear them all the time I walk around this building we're not the biggest training ground so I can hear them pretty much from everywhere they're either with it's sunny it's not today they're out there playing cricket at the front after training they do it in the dressing room they mess around some people I don't think understand it they're like shouldn't we all be really formal and just work think about work and training no have good times enjoy coming to work and then the minute they get on the training pitch any information we give or demands they're really good they want to do it and that's that's that's a pleasure to work with is that something then you've created or have tried to create and you've done in in the jobs that you've had so far or is that just summing up the culture and the environment that we're in right now I think it's a bit of both because every group is different in that sense and we've got quite a British core in the group good sense of humor good good well I think we like to think so most of them and that's the sum of it I would say we've we've created as in we as in myself Chris and Joe coming in as a new staff predominantly I tried to create that I'm always about work ethic and it's all I talk about work work work but as I've got wise I understand all the moments in between are really important as well because if you don't have a good feeling around the camp and you get difficult results it can become difficult very quickly so you have to gauge the group you're working with these boys take care of a lot of that themselves I think Grimesy coming in as captain of the club is a really important move he's very very good at that role of being very balanced and helping the different facets of the dressing room and a lot of that is probably down to the players themselves they've created this really good group so I just kind of let a lot of that stuff run as long as they train out there and don't go over the line on things I'm fine but I like that because you were probably the same as a player in in the dressing room that you were in at Chelsea and at West Ham just maybe not always up to mischief but but when you had an opportunity you would be well maybe that you know people talk about you playing career and you're going to imagine one of the good things I had a lot of experience is as a player not just on the pitch and I understand a good culture as everyone loves to talk about in this modern day it comes in many ways and many shapes and if I look back to my best times at Chelsea of course managers etc but I look back at the dressing room and I go an amazing captain in John Terry we had a really diverse dressing room of players that were leaders in Didier Drogba and Petr Cech and all these people and yeah we would have so many laughs in the in the dressing room and all those things and you know whether we'd go near a line if there was a line anywhere might happen but when we went out we went out to win and we went out to play and we were very very strong as a group so there's a lot of people that write about culture and do pretty seminars and talk about culture but they don't understand it and come in very in different ways and culture is there for one reason it's there to win if you have a good culture you don't win forget about it so at this point we've got a good balance with that but as I say we have to always keep on top of it because if you drop it and you don't win then you have an issue. Maybe finish it off on that then because in a way it's going to play a huge part to what you want to achieve this season the culture that you have. Yeah it will do because there's a lot of stuff we work a lot on the training ground tactically I think we've evolved a lot as a team I'm not sure the lads get enough credit for that because we have a lot of games we've played this season where I'm really pleased to know the work out there is transferring onto the pitch but I think to get out of this league and specifically when you're not a parachute team and I think about teams I think about the Ipswich story a couple of years ago and I looked at it from the outside and it might just be me but they've got something good going on there you could see it in you know from the outside in terms of the energy of the group on the pitch and I look at certain other teams I remember when up teams like Burnley we know doing amazingly in the Premier League and you kind of go how do they keep coming mid table when you think they might be down there and you could see that character and everyone has a different version of it and ours has to remain and that's why I'm big on that and that's why sometimes when the lads make me laugh or I'm a little bit I want to not tell them off and get them in line. Not find them. I have to find the right moments to do those things because I understand how important it is for us and if you're having good personalities in a team that will be winners and leaders like I think we have sort of started to show themselves people like Bobby Thomas etc they've got personality which means it might test me in the week but I know that when this we want fighters on the pitch you're one of the first ones to stand up and I love that.