Sideways Sammy

Since the last edition of The Wrap, Coventry City have gone top of the league, scoring 13 goals in those five matches missing from my coverage. Instead of reviewing an individual game, I thought it would be apposite to cover this entire stretch of form as Coventry have reached new heights and now sit top of the early Championship table.

The Sky Blues look in a great place right now, with several things clicking together to produce a seemingly unstoppable winning unit. It’s early days but it’s clear that if Coventry can maintain something like this level of standard, it’s hard to see why they wouldn’t achieve promotion this season.

Pressing Monsters

Prior to his arrival at Coventry City, Frank Lampard had been associated with an aggressive brand of pressing football. That was something that hadn’t really been in evidence in his first months in charge – save for some of the home games towards the back end of last season – but has become a key feature of the Sky Blues’ play since the start of the new campaign.

This Coventry side look empowered to really chase after opponents as they look to settle on the ball in their defensive third. Recent goals against Millwall and Sheffield Wednesday have come from the team forcing errors from the opposition high up the pitch, leading to good chances to finish for Haji Wright and Brandon Thomas-Asante in those respective games.

It’s not just the goals it has led to but the ability to break up the rhythm of the opposition that has been made the increase in pressing intensity so effective. Apart from the Leicester City away game, it is hard to think of a match this season where an opponent has been able to impose themselves on Coventry City. Even in matches where the Sky Blues have the minority of possession, Coventry have rarely been pinned into their defensive third for extended spells.

The team looks fitter and more physically powerful than they did over the second half of last season, which would seem a testament to the fitness work that has been put in over pre-season. It means Coventry City are able to assert themselves to a high intensity for long stretches of games, continuing to chase the ball until the opposition are out of steam and often winning 50/50 challenges, which keeps the momentum in the team’s favour.

The high defensive line that Frank Lampard deployed for spells of last season has become notably more effective this time around, now that it’s backed up by an energetic press. Having looked a key area of weakness for opponents to target, the back four looks far more comfortable playing further up the pitch, able to read situations where they can intercept the ball or have to drop in to cover balls over the top. It’s not perfect but when there is loose play at the back for opponents to pounce upon, the defence is usually able to recover with minimum fuss.

If there is a player who embodies the Coventry City of the start of the 2025/26 season, it is Brandon Thomas-Asante. The forward has been transformed from a hesitant, bit-part player to an integral part of the starting line-up. His energy is absolutely tireless, combined with his raw pace and upper body build, he has made himself a nightmare for opposing teams in his relentlessness in closing them down on the ball. Now receiving the ball in dangerous areas of the pitch with defenders scrambled, he is creating and scoring with ease, making it hard to justify taking him out of the starting XI in favour of those who would have been first names on the team-sheet earlier this campaign.

There is a relentlessness to this Coventry City team right now. If they spurn a chance, they continue to chase the opposition, knowing they can force another one soon after. Attacking players are finding goals easier to come by and that has allowed confidence to flow in abundance.

Set-Piece Domination

It had been a key feature of Coventry City’s play for most of last season, but the team has managed to continue this area of domination into the new campaign, despite becoming a known quantity in this area. It has proved a valuable source of goals, particularly in being able to open games up and force opponents on the back foot.

The win over Birmingham City highlighted how set-piece goals can turn difficult games into comfortable ones. The match was relatively tight at 0-0, until a Milan van Ewijk long throw early on eventually lead to a Brandon Thomas-Asante goal and kicked off a spiral for Birmingham that saw them collectively lose their heads throughout the remainder of the game. Similarly, against Sheffield Wednesday, an early first goal forced a determined defensive team to change their game-plan and play completely into the Sky Blues’ hands.

Like the pressing, it’s not just the goals that the set-pieces lead to that are valuable but the pressure it puts on the opposition. With Milan van Ewijk’s long throws meaning that opponents can’t even clear their lines to relieve pressure, the ability of Coventry City, Bobby Thomas in particular – to get the first contact on seemingly most of their set-piece deliveries must surely put the heebie-jeebies into opponents.

Combined with the pressing, it creates a sense that the next chance for Coventry City is always just around the corner. The worry is that this could lead to a profligate attitude but having at least two distinct ways of forcing chances means that Coventry aren’t reliant on just one method to break games open.

The flip-side of the set-piece threat is that the Sky Blues have conceded among the highest amount of goals from set-piece situations, with five of the seven they’ve let in during the Championship season thus far coming from dead balls. However, it’s notable that Coventry haven’t conceded from such situations since the first international break, looking to have put the work in to ensure they are winning the first contact in both boxes.

Absentees Encourage A Direct Approach

A key shortcoming of Coventry City’s summer transfer window was how they got themselves into a situation at the start of September where they had just six players to cover the four attacking positions. That looked to have been immediately punished when Ephron Mason-Clark and Jack Rudoni got injured shortly after transfer deadline day, instead, Frank Lampard has shuffled players around and tweaked the approach in order to suit the players at his disposal.

The absence of Jack Rudoni in particular has seen Coventry City play the ball forward more quickly than they otherwise would. Initially, Josh Eccles stepped into the ‘number 10’ position that Rudoni filled in the side, mainly for his harrying ability in the final third, before Brandon Thomas-Asante took up a withdrawn forward position when Eccles picked up a knock ahead of the Sheffield Wednesday game.

Aided by the booming kicks of Carl Rushworth in goal, Coventry City have become more direct in their play from back to front in recent games. This looks to feed into the pressing style, creating opportunities to get opponents in awkward situations on the ball in their defensive third and squeeze them. Whether it’s been Josh Eccles’ force in the challenge or Brandon Thomas-Asante’s pace and energy, Coventry have had players at that end of the pitch ready to put the pressure on the opposition.

It was the Birmingham City game that really embodied this more direct approach, taking advantage of an opponent that wanted to press up on Coventry City, without the requisite defensive pace to cover for it. Jack Robinson’s red card for the Blues came from two situations where he was left scrambling to deal with a direct pass into a forward for Coventry. Meanwhile, Victor Torp’s goal later on in that game is pure long ball goodness, with Ellis Simms muscling off Eiran Cashin after an emphatic pump forward from Carl Rushworth to create the initial chance.

For much of his time at Coventry City, Frank Lampard hasn’t appeared to be a particularly flexible manager in terms of either starting formation or his preferred style of play. From the ability to dig out a clean sheet away at Leicester City, to this recent adjustment in approach based on the absence of one or two key players, Lampard has shown he can adjust to changing circumstances and get positive results.

Carl Rushworth Shows His Quality In Goal

Carl Rushworth had endured an unconvincing start in Sky Blues. Billed as one of the best possible loan options available, with Coventry City apparently ready to pay a big fee to sign him permanently instead, Rushworth’s early performances for the club suggested the club had dodged a bullet in Brighton & Hove Albion rejecting that initial bid for his services.

Whether it was getting caught out at his near post for Derby County’s first goal in the 5-3 thriller in August or the general flapping at almost every cross, embodied by him making a pig’s ear of a simple ball in late on against Queens Park Rangers in the 7-1 win at the CBS Arena, Carl Rushworth was struggling to show much quality in his early appearances for the club. On top of that, his distribution left something to be desired, seeming to aimlessly hammer every kick forward and finding touch more often than his team-mates.

The clean sheet against Leicester City seems to have provided Carl Rushworth with a statement performance to settle into the goalkeeping jersey at Coventry City. One or two good saves in that game looked to have settled any uncertainty Rushworth had about his ability – perhaps a relic of having barely played last season due to a combination of injury and getting recalled from a loan at Hull City to play third-choice at Brighton. Rushworth has not only started to become reliable for making saves but his command of the penalty area has improved markedly, with his distribution increasingly hitting the mark.

For all of the goals that Coventry City have been scoring recently, the clean sheets have been almost equally as impressive. This was highlighted against Millwall, where Carl Rushworth made a couple of big saves when the opposition managed to get on the front foot early in the second-half, which then empowered Coventry to go on and kill the game off later on.

A decent goalkeeper helps the team avoid conceding howlers, a great goalkeeper helps the team keep clean sheets when they don’t necessarily have the right to. Carl Rushworth is increasingly showing that he is of the latter quality. While the Sky Blues already have a quality goalkeeper on their books, in the injured Oliver Dovin, not being able to add Rushworth as a permanent member of the squad over the summer is starting to look like a big opportunity missed.

The Value Of A Settled Squad

Cut back to 12 months ago, players like Jay Dasilva, Liam Kitching and Brandon Thomas-Asante were close to joke figures in the side. Somewhere in the region of £8-10 million spent on them looked to be a complete waste of resources. Flash forward to the present, they are among the best performers of a team that is top of the Championship and unbeaten over nine games.

It goes to show that players can improve if they are given the patience and platform in order to do so. There are countless examples throughout the rest of the squad that highlight how the perception of a player’s quality is so often influenced by their most recent performances. From Haji Wright ending last season as something of a villain who spurned a big chance to take Coventry to Wembley in the play-off semi-final and is now the division’s top-scorer. Ephron Mason-Clark looked a damp squib early in his time at the club and is now a reliable source of goals and assists. Even Ellis Simms has started to score goals and look more confident in his all-round play recently.

Whereas fans had been expecting something of a rebuild over the summer following Frank Lampard’s first pre-season with the club, the manager has instead looked to make the best out of the players already available to him. The start to this campaign has shown what a difference time on the training pitch, confidence and better physical preparation can make to players.

Even with a few injuries at the moment, it seems as if there are several players in this Coventry City squad desperate to get into the team and make an impact. There’s a hunger in the individual performances, whether it’s from the start or the bench. A spot in the starting XI is becoming highly valued, despite the relative lack of competition. Standards look to have been set high and players are striving to reach for them.