Sky Blues Boss Opens Up On Players Disappointment After Defeat At Hawthorns

Frank Lampard couldn’t hide his disappointment after his Coventry City side “more than matched” what he described as a top six West Brom side but came away from The Hawthorns empty handed .

The Sky Blues head coach admitted that his players need to be more clinical after creating 16 attempts on the Baggies’ goal, four of which were on target but thwarted by either good defending or goalkeeping, while other efforts went agonisingly wide.

There was also an element of bad luck for Albion’s 11th minute opener which saw Alex Mowatt’s powerful shot take a wicked deflection off Josh Eccles to wrong-foot goalkeeper Brad Collins.

“Yeah, exactly that,” agreed Lampard, reflecting on the 2-0 defeat – his first loss since arriving at the club.

“I can’t say anything about the first goal when there’s a deflection like that. It’s not our fault as such, things like that can happen. After that in big periods of the game we played some nice stuff, created the better chances in the game and the more chances in the game but the clinical nature of football means you need to take them when they are there because it changes the face of it.

“And when you lose 2-0 it is hard to sit here and say it’s allowable, but we understand it, at least, and we were good in parts of the game. But we lost it, and that’s the reality.”

City built momentum after the break but conceded a really poor goal against the run of play in the 74th minute when Karlan Grant was allowed to waltz past three players and drill home to effectively secure the three points.

“Yeah, the manner of the goal isn’t good, and that’s clear and we’ll deal with that,” said the 46-year-old coach. “But until that point I don’t think Brad (Collins) was making saves and we were creating chances. And it’s important to see that side of it because it’s easy to look loosely at the game and just say it’s a defeat.

“West Brom are a strong Championship team, we know that, a top six team and we more than matched them in terms of in general play and chances in the game, but being clinical is obviously going to be key for us. The players know that and there’s no point getting too negative about that with the players because when you’re creating it’s a real positive, and finishing is the last bit and we need to get that right.”