Frank Lampard admits Coventry City will need to adapt their tactics on the night to counteract Sunderland’s game plan at the Stadium of Light.
The head coach’s opposite number Regis Le Bris set his team out to defend in numbers and hit the Sky Blues on the counter attack in Friday night’s 2-1 City defeat in the play-off semi-final first leg at the CBS Arena in what was an effective away game ploy.
But how the Frenchman will set out his Black Cats side on Tuesday night’s second leg remains to be seen, whether they adopt a similar low block and defend their fragile aggregate lead or take the initiative in a bid to increase their advantage.
“We don’t know how the game will look,” admitted Lampard. “We don’t know that they’ll come and play at home as they play away. It could look completely different, so we have to be ready for lots of different things.”
Lampard is encouraged by the fact that he felt his players played well with a good performance in the first leg defeat, albeit unable to freely break down Sunderland’s solid and well organised two banks of four, save for Jack Rudoni’s equalising goal.
“The reason they’ve got to where they are is because of the way we play, because of what they do individually within that collective,” said the City boss, reflecting on his team’s style of play.
“You saw the way we want to play. Sunderland came and respected us, to be fair, in the first game and got their result.
“We can see the way we want to play. We need to do a few details better, which we can explain to the players. Other than that, the message is to keep doing what we’ve been doing and trust themselves. It’s a game of football.”
The one improvement Lampard would like to see, however, is more attacking intent to get the better of the opposition’s defences.
“Apart from the two goals (in the first match), the rest of the game was pretty much ours to a big degree. We played pretty well, had a lot of the ball, created some chances and they defended really well, making it difficult for us.
“So I think some of the responsibility is on us to be a little bit more intent, a little bit more at the top end of the pitch where things didn’t fall for us. Maybe the result could have felt better. It’s the reality of playing football. The team comes, has a plan to defend very low and they negate a lot of spaces that you want.
“It’s normal, they’re entitled to try and do that against us. You don’t want to give them the counter-attack moment or the last goal. But I’m fine with it. It’s what it is now. We just have to prepare for the game in front of us, go and try and play like we did the other day without the little errors that we put in. Try not to do those and also a little bit more intent, like I talk about.”
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