In the overlooking lounge at Coventry City's Sky Lodge training ground, which has sofas, a table tennis table, a dart board and a large screen with an Xbox game console, Frank Lampard is being interviewed by The Athletic, looking back on his journey to leading the team to the English Championship.
There is a common misunderstanding about British coaching. This misunderstanding is that because the British public has grown up hearing about our achievements as players, they think that we ex-players get the job because of our past playing careers.
We go and cheer that team on, or try to create an atmosphere that we might have had back then, and then say, 'Come on, guys, play football and go out there.'
I hope that if people look at what we've done this year, they don't just say, 'Oh, look, Frank got the team into a really good situation, everyone is getting along, morale is high.'
There's no way you can get everything. You have to be precise at the tactical level. You have to communicate clearly with the players. They have to recognize your tactical ideas. We invest a lot of energy in this area.
For Lampard, this was quite an extraordinary journey of redemption. The Coventry team he coached dominated the league this season, ending the season with 95 points and scoring 97 goals in 46 games.
Last month, in front of 7,500 jubilant Coventry fans, who secured promotion with a last-minute draw away to Blackburn Rovers, they have watched their club slip to the fourth tier for the past 25 years and share the ground with Northampton and Birmingham City.
Where does Coventry's promotion rank among Lampard's career achievements?
, "Absolutely the most critical, important and prominent one," he responded with a serious expression. "But that doesn't mean it's above my personal achievements as a player, because those achievements are also amazing."
But as a head coach, you have greater responsibilities and greater pressure. So when you're here, like we did with this team this year, and they're giving it their all and getting where they are, you get a real sense of satisfaction from your job. So, it's definitely one of my proudest achievements, along with everything else I've done.
Lampard said that his experience in Coventry, which was the fourth team he coached, taught him how to stay calm during ups and downs in performance and gave him more confidence in his work, because this confidence will be infected by the players.
When Lampard arrives in Coventry in November 2024, there will be a team that is 17th in the league, just 2 points above the relegation zone. However, this is a team with outstanding talent. In the previous season, under the leadership of former head coach Mark Robins, who was loved by fans and had coached for many years, they successfully reached the finals of the promotion play-offs.
When Lampard took over the job, he and his assistants Joe Edwards and Chris Jones traveled to Coventry in a commercial vehicle in what he described as a "slightly unknown experiment". They knew they had to quickly restore players' confidence and identified the tactical elements that needed improvement.
These efforts have yielded the expected results. Coventry was originally ranked 17th, and now it has jumped to 5th. However, in the second leg of the play-off semi-finals, they were defeated by Sunderland in a decisive way in the 122nd minute. However, they did not immerse themselves in this defeat, but turned it into motivation to move forward this season.
Lampard joined Coventry to prove himself. Before that, he served as interim head coach at Chelsea and coached 11 games. However, he only achieved one victory and was ridiculed by opponent fans. Former players Jermaine Pennant and Jamie O'Hara even discussed on the talkSPORT radio program whether he was "the worst manager in the history of the Premier League."
The toughness he developed as a player played a big role.
First, during the coaching period, especially in the current era of such intense social media and public opinion reactions, all situations have come together. Lampard said that he has played 648 times for Chelsea and scored 211 goals. After leaving Chelsea, I had to prove myself because I felt that any public feedback about my coaching at that time was unfair. To be honest, I was not vague about my requirements at all.
He said that he is a Chelsea man and that during those six or seven weeks at Chelsea, he took over a club that actually belonged to him, but the situation was completely different and the motivation of the players had disappeared.
Some players are unable to play due to various reasons, such as injuries, or they plan to transfer in the summer. This is a very valuable learning experience. From this, I know that it is difficult to win the game under such circumstances. As an interim head coach, there is also an extremely limited amount that can be done in such a short period of time.
This experience made me more resilient, but it also made me more aware that if I were to make the next decision, it would have to be a sound football decision, one that I could have a positive impact on.
Then, you can only hope that once you've accomplished a great job, you can begin to answer those questions. However, don't always try to prove others wrong, because you simply can't prove everyone wrong. However, there is nothing wrong with keeping this idea in mind.
This spirit, and iron will, has been with Lampard since his playing days. He endured accusations of nepotism and taunts over his weight during his time at West Ham United, yet he grew into one of England's greatest midfielders.
Lampard, wearing Coventry's Hummel training jersey, continued, "I know that in my playing career and my coaching career, I have learned to have perseverance and a strong heart.