Frank Lampard hailed Coventry City’s character after riding their luck against Sheffield Wednesday and travelling home with the full three points after scoring another late winner following their last gasp victory over QPR in midweek.
Ellis Simms gave the Sky Blues the lead against the run of first half play in a game the head coach wasn’t convinced they deserved to win overall. But, after handing the Owls an equaliser from an unfortunate own goal from Joel Latibeaudiere, Simms showed a striker’s determination to capitalise on a goalkeeping error from James Beadle who dropped a high ball, leaving the number nine to punish him in the second minute of four added for stoppages at Hillsborough.
“Two late winners in a week and it gives off a sign of the character and desire of the team to keep going,” said Lampard, speaking after the 2-1 away win which lifted City up to seventh place, just a place off sixth placed West Brom.
“Today was a really tough match, there’s no doubt, but Ellis’s desire to chase that lost cause when others might have given up on it, and then he finished it well. It was an individual moment for him but for the team, as a collective, we had to defend the box a lot and we did it.
“Whether we deserved it over the game is debatable, for sure, because they played well and had a lot of chances on our goal and put in a lot of crosses and corners and stuff. But for what we have put in over the last two and a half months, and where we are trying to get to, the games challenge you in different ways, and this one did but the players dug in and we won it at the end.”
Wednesday had 22 shots, eight on target and a total of 53 touches in the box to force Coventry into a bodies on the line defensive display with players throwing themselves into blocks and tackles at times.
“Yeah, and there are some things we can improve in terms of allowing them in,” said Lampard. “They give you problems because they are a good, strong squad and they are well coached and they give you issues. Barry Bannan is so influential, popping up and around the pitch and finding passes and free men, so we knew that was coming a little bit.
“But we also had some periods in the game where we got it down. I thought Grimesy showed some of his calmness and coolness on the ball, finding passes and when we had those moments on a difficult pitch we could take the sting out of it a little bit and have input in the game ourselves.
“The save the goalkeeper made from Tatsu’s header was incredible. It was an amazing save to stop us scoring just before but we also had to defend and make saves, but that’s football. It’s not all domination of the ball and 60 percent possession. We’ve had some of those and some of those we haven’t won. We have had less of the ball this time but we won it through different means and character.”
Discussion about this post