Coventry City couldn’t have asked for a worse start to their first season back in the Premier League.
The Sky Blues have played four, lost four. New signing Taiwo Awoniyi was sent off against Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday, leaving his teammates to see out a match that took the number of goals they’ve conceded to 10.
Frank Lampard has earned the backing of Coventry owner Doug King
There’s no shortage of doom and gloom on Coventry’s behalf, and justifiably so. History shows that promoted teams who start with four losses tend to end the season in the Premier League’s relegation places.
Lampard is under external scrutiny on the basis of results alone, but a sizeable proportion of Coventry supporters are aware of the harsh reality of Premier League promotion and appreciative of Lampard’s work away from the mainstream spotlight.
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Sure, times are tough. The results aren’t where they need to be. The Brighton game was a brutal reminder that some afternoons are going to be hard to stomach. Nobody is sugarcoating any of that, least of all Lampard himself.
But the supporters are largely keeping their heads and the same should be true of Sky Blues owner Doug King. Nothing in football is forever, but Lampard can operate freely in the knowledge that his chairman is his biggest advocate in the game.
There was no hiding from the difficult season ahead when King and Coventry committed to a new three-year contract for Lampard.
King has been crystal clear that he’ll stand behind his manager, explaining during the summer that he’s more concerned about his club doing the right things in the right way than surface-level results.
It’s a self-assured outlook and shows a surprisingly enlightened understanding of the sheer size of the challenge for new Premier League clubs.
There are 19 other teams that want to beat Coventry and King appears to be reluctant to risk cutting off his nose to spite his face.
That’s the element that’s likely to be missing from the wider discussion in the weeks and months ahead. King should be tapping into the beginnings of his patience reserves, not the end, because Lampard has earned that faith.
In FourFourTwo‘s opinion, now is not the time for flapping. Coventry are in a miserable spot but King and the Sky Blues supporters seem largely aware that avoiding that is no guarantee. Failing to avoid it doesn’t undo the positive evolution of Lampard as a manager in the last two years.
When Coventry kick off against Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday, it’ll be the bottom two teams in the Premier League on the pitch at the Coventry Building Society Arena.
Emery has a broad base of support at Villa because of his achievements. It shouldn’t be any different for Lampard.