A season to remember: How Coventry City got it right

Last November, Coventry City appointed Frank Lampard as their new Head Coach – and just about everybody agreed it was a really bad idea.

It didn’t help that Lampard’s managerial career to date had consisted of failing to get Derby promoted, being hounded out of a seemingly relegation-bound Everton and falling victim to the sack at Chelsea not once, but twice. There is more nuance to Lampard’s managerial career to date than that, but it could not be argued that his managerial talents had matched his ability as a player.

The catastrophic consequences of Birmingham City appointing, and eventually sacking, Lampard’s former England teammate Wayne Rooney the previous season were fresh in Championship fans’ minds and, with the club sitting two places above the relegation zone, Coventry could not afford to make the same mistake.

More unpopular than the decision to hire Lampard, however, was the decision, three weeks prior, to part ways with a man the club themselves describe as one of their “greatest ever managers.”

Mark Robins had taken the club from near insolvency in League Two to the Championship, and just 18 months prior to his sacking had Coventry a penalty shootout away from reaching the Premier League, ultimately falling short to Luton Town.

The year after, Coventry thought they had reached the FA Cup final with a historic victory over Manchester United, only for VAR to peg them back and for a penalty defeat to cruelly haunt the Sky Blues again.

Sure, Robins had started the season slowly, but Coventry were also slow starters in their two previous Championship campaigns under him and those seasons ended with a playoff campaign and a ninth-place finish and FA Cup semi-final respectively. It seemed incredible that Robins did not have enough credit to continue.

Clearly, then, the pressure was on Lampard to hit the ground running – so it did not help when he failed to win any of his first four matches, won three of his first 13, and had the club on 24 points at Christmas – a particularly difficult pill to swallow given Doug King, City’s owner, had justified the sacking of Robins by saying that getting to Christmas with any fewer than 26 points would mean the season was “gone.” Yet 18 months later, Coventry is getting ready for a return to England’s topflight for the first time since 2001.

Lampard helped these same players level up from playoff achievers to title winners

Jack Saunders, Sky Blue Fans TV co-host

So how have they done it? How have Lampard and King turned Coventry’s form around, won back the trust of the fans, and taken the Sky Blues all the way to English football’s “Promised Land”?

Before we tackle what the answer to that question is, it’s important to discuss what the answer is not.

This is not – as one could perhaps argue the title triumphs of Leeds United, Leicester City, and Burnley in the previous three seasons have been – a case of a side with one of the biggest budgets in the league simply outspending rivals with parachute money.

Sure, City hadn’t been afraid to spend meaningful sums on players when worth it (the acquisition of Haji Wright for £7.7m in 2023 stands out, as does Jack Rudoni’s £5m move from Huddersfield), but this was more than covered by the sales of key players like Viktor Gyökeres and Gustavo Hamer for a combined £40m. Only three Championship sides spent less than Coventry on wages last season, and all three had been in the third tier within the last two seasons.

The squad Lampard has done this with is, at its core, the same squad he inherited from Robins in November 2024.

Speaking to The Boar Sport, Jack Saunders, from the Leamington & Warwick Coventry City Supporters group and the Sky Blue Fans TV podcast, credited Lampard and his team with helping “these same players level up from playoff achievers to title winners.”

The likes of Rudoni, Wright, right-back Milan van Ewijk, center-back Liam Kitching, and winger Ephron Mason-Clark have all been key players for Lampard this season, and all were signed under Robins.

When Coventry has added, they have focused on tangible first-team improvements. Former Swansea captain Matt Grimes was Lampard’s only first-window singing, and has since been essential for Coventry’s success under Lampard.

Players like Luke Woolfenden and Kaine Kesler-Hayden were brought in as depth in the summer, but the only meaningful addition to the first XI was goalkeeper Carl Rushworth. The Brighton loanee has been, without doubt, the best keeper in the Championship this year (indeed, Saunders describes him as “the best goalkeeper at Coventry City this century without a shadow of a doubt”), completing a clean sweep of the club’s awards.

Coventry secured promotion with four matches to spare

In January, when Coventry dropped off top spot (prompting The Boar to ask if they were “bottling it”), they again acted, singing a partner for Grimes in the form of Frank Onyeka from Brentford, who Saunders stated turned City’s form around “almost single handedly.”

However, retaining key players has been more important than recruitment. Unlike in previous summers, when the likes of Gyökeres, Hamer, and O’Hare have departed for pastures new, Coventry kept their key players at the club this summer.

Many expected that Milan van Ewijk would depart last summer but not only did the right-back stay and play a key part in City’s title triumph, but the Dutchman has been persuaded to sign a new contract to extend his stay at the CBS Arena until 2029. This has, of course, been helped by the prospect of Premier League football, but it also speaks to the personal appeal Lampard has brought to the squad.

It is in no small part due to the former Chelsea man’s popularity and idolisation amongst the Sky Blues squad that Rushworth looks set to resist bids made by more established Premier League clubs this summer to return to the midlands permanently, even when his parent club, Brighton and Hove Albion, may well qualify for Europe.

Perhaps most crucially, when Jack Rudoni was initially convinced to join relegated Southampton last summer, it was Lampard who convinced the midfielder to give City – and him – one more year. One suspects that Rudoni will now give City several.

It helps that Lampard too has stayed at City despite links to St Mary’s – both in the summer and after Will Still’s sacking in November – and now looks set to rebuff interest from Crystal Palace to lead Coventry’s project into the Premier League.

This was a dominant, decisive Championship season, and it will live long in the memory of Coventry fans

Tactically, City has also significantly transformed under Lampard. While Robins was more flexible with his formations, Lampard has set City up in a 4-2-3-1 and attempted to make them a more dominant side. The addition of Grimes has been essential to this, with the midfielder averaging 63 completed passes per match, and his arrival, thus, coinciding with Coventry’s upturn in form after Lampard’s difficult start to the 2024/25 season. Despite relegation fears lingering as late as January that year, Coventry reached an unlikely playoff spot before losing to eventual winners Sunderland in the semi-final.

With a full pre-season behind them this time, however, it has finally all come together for Coventry. They secured promotion with four matches to spare away at Blackburn, eventually winning the league by 11 points. They scored 97 goals, 15 more than their nearest competitor, and lost just seven of their 46 league fixtures all season.

Coventry topped the league in expected goals, shots on target, and even set-piece goals, not to mention attendance, while no team conceded fewer in the division. This was a dominant, decisive Championship season, and it will live long in the memory of Coventry fans.

Even the most optimistic Coventry fan would acknowledge the squad needs significant investment this summer if it is to survive, but the club can take solace that two of the three promoted clubs this season, Leeds and Sunderland, have survived in the Premier League. Doug King has promised to tackle England’s top flight “the Coventry way,” and whilst few fans would expect spending to match that of Sunderland or Nottingham Forest, there is confidence the club can continue to show intelligence in the market and continue to beat the odds against the game’s elite.

And with Lampard at the helm, a core of players to believe in, and a club – and city – united as it attacks the Premier League, why not? The 2025/26 season will go down as one to remember for Coventry fans, but many will be asking if the best is yet to come.