When Norman Bassette was snapped up late on in last summer’s transfer window for a reported fee of between £2.1million and £2.98m the relatively unknown Belgian teenager was clearly joining Coventry City as a bit of a project.
Although just 19 at the time, his blistering pace and huge amount of confidence singled him out as a precocious talent who Mark Robins explained at the time had “really good attributes and a huge amount of potential.”
He was a bit of an unknown quantity and an interesting signing who felt like a calculated gamble – a young player who could turn out to be something really special for the Sky Blues.
As his first full season at this level draws to a close, the former Caen striker has played 29 times for Coventry, including 11 Championship starts and 14 appearances from the bench. Amongst his most eye-catching displays came against Tottenham in the Carabao Cup last September, and when he scored one of his two goals to date against Sheffield United in the CBS Arena clash with the Blades back in November – a period when he enjoyed plenty of regular game time.
His opportunities have been patchy in more recent months as the player continues to be an exciting work-in-progress. Asked to assess the now 20-year-old’s development and what he needs to do to get more match minutes, Lampard told CoventryLive: “As a young lad there is work to be done and Norman has a lot of work to do.
“He’s got talent and attributes and I think he got into the team in my early days here and gave it some really positive things. But for his game, he needs a lot of work and also to understand the demands of being a player. And when you’re not playing, how you train and keep improving.
“As a young player that’s absolutely of huge importance and I’ve got a very good understanding of that. So for Norman, he needs to keep working and he has to understand he’s got good competition in the area of the team that he’s in. And in this level it’s quite ruthless.
“You need to do all the work, you need to work through the week, you need to do all the work come game day and at the top end of the pitch you need to be clinical and score. That goes for every striker in the world, you know, and more when the prize and the demands are so high.”
He added: “So good competition is good when everybody’s training to show me that they need to be in the team. That’s not just for Norman, that goes for everybody. And when you’re a young player there will be moments when you have to really understand that and keep working, keep improving and then get your opportunity.
“But Norman’s a big talent for us and I enjoy working with him. He’s very receptive to work on a training pitch. He just has to understand with a squad sometimes that he absolutely needs to keep that absolute top for him on the training pitch to then get himself minutes in the game.”
Asked if the supremely confident Bassette needs to be patient as a young player, the head coach said: “There’s always that period of patience that’s needed for players to be a realist about the situation because players will always look at it through their own lens.
“I have my lens and responsibilities to pick the team and I say this to the players a lot, if it’s not one player asking why they have not been picked it will be the next one because there’s a squad. And you also have to support your teammates at all times and we’ve got a good squad for that in terms of the dressing room.
“We’re good for that but even if a young player is a bit lacking in patience it’s fine. It’s no problem to come in and have a desire and ask why they’re not playing. But what you have to do is train to a top level every day and behave, and all those things, particularly as a young player because from the outside it’s really easy to look at all the top players and go, look at what they’re achieving at Man City or Chelsea etc.
“The journeys are always a bit different and there’s always a period at the start of that journey where players have to be a bit patient and just work and work to show their quality. So I’ve got sympathy with young players who knock on my door. I have got it with any player but the sympathy is much stronger when I see training levels.
“If there’s a lack of training levels… That’s the non-negotiables that people talk about. And when you see that you have to sustain that. It’s no good in small periods of the season, it has to be all the time. That’s what the best players do.”
As for Bassette’s character and spark which fans lapped up with his wind-up antics against Sheffield United earlier in season when he was accused of engineering Anel Ahmedhodzic’s red card, Lampard said: “Character and spark is good, if controlled well. And Norman, for me, does control it well.
“So all those things are positives for him in his character. So yeah, Norman came here, as you say, before me as a project. And I think we can be really pleased and Norman should be pleased with his impact this season. He’ll want more and I like that too. So, as I say, he just has to keep working.”
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