Coventry City boss Frank Lampard issues warning as Middlesbrough's title rivals suffer double injury blow
Championship title contenders Coventry City and Middlesbrough both picked up impressive away wins over the weekend.
Coventry City manager Frank Lampard has issued a warning to his Premier League promotion chasing players as they look to see off the challenge of Championship title rivals Middlesbrough.
Both the Sky Blues and Boro claimed impressive away wins at the weekend as their bid for the second tier title rapidly approaches what should be a thrilling and nerve-shredding climax. For Boro, there was a fine away day display on Sunday as Morgan Whittaker, Alan Browne, Hayden Hackney and Tommy Conway all found the net in a 4-0 win at Queens Park Rangers.
That victory came just over 24 hours after Coventry had temporarily extended their advantage over Kim Hellberg’s men to eight points with a 2-0 win at play-off contenders Bristol City. Both of the goals came in the first half as Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Haji Wright both found the net for Lampard’s men, who played for the entirety of the second-half with ten men after defender Joel Latibeaudiere was shown a straight red card just two minutes before half-time.
Despite his side battling to what could be a big three points, Sky Blues boss Lampard has warned there can be no easing off from his players as they now turn their focus towards a tough-looking home double-header with Preston North End and Southampton over the coming days.
He told the club website: “There’s ten games to go, that’s 30 points, it’s a load of points, it’s a lot. We know what this league is like, we know it’s a challenge so the last thing I want is for everyone to go ‘oh, that’s great, we won on the road, two games at the CBS, that’ll be easy’. They’re not easy. Games are how you make them and how you approach them. The boys approached the last five games brilliantly so hopefully they have learnt that thing where we had the dip, we worked into Middlesbrough great.
“The lads performed brilliantly with this work ethic and organisation because of how they’re training at the moment. The lads are training really, really well. That has to continue from everyone, starters and non-starters, the ones that come into the team, subs that come into the team, subs that don’t even come on. If we can continue in this short period of time, we have an opportunity here and they need to continue.”
Injury
If there was some bad news from a positive day for the Sky Blues, it came when defender Bobby Thomas and key midfielder Jack Rudoni were both ruled out of the visit to Ashton Gate and Lampard has revealed both players will ‘probably’ not return until after this month’s international break.
“They’ve both got calf issues and they’ll both probably be on the other side of the international break - but with a bit of luck, maybe the game before, Swansea,” he explained.