FOOTBALL – Frank Lampard praises Coventry City players for ‘finding a way to win’ against Sheffield Wednesday
FRANK Lampard praised his Coventry City players for ‘finding a way to win’ after the Sky Blues snatched an injury-time victory at Sheffield Wednesday.
A late goal from Ellis Simms saw City claim a sixth win from their last seven league matches after the striker had earlier opened the scoring at Hillsborough.
The win leaves Coventry one place and one point outside of the play-off places and Lampard heaped praise on striker Simms who has now scored in each of City’s last three away matches.
Lampard said: “It was a tough match. They caused us some problems, we also gave them some problems, but we had to defend at times and it’s part of football to be resilient, especially on the road.
“We showed character to keep going. Ellis deserves all the plaudits. It’s a great goal his first one and then the second, people will reference the mistake from their goalkeeper but if Ellis doesn’t chase and put him under pressure then we don’t score the winner.
“Really pleased with the players, finding a way to win in a really tough match.
“There were parts of the game where we had to suffer a bit and defend the box, and I thought it was really good stuff from everybody at the back.”
The Sky Blues broke the deadlock on 16 minutes when Simms glanced Jack Rudoni’s cross from the right into the bottom left corner from eight-yards out.
Wednesday drew level on 62 minutes as Oliver Dovin pushed Marvin Johnson’s low cross from the left onto the legs of Joel Latibeaudiere and the ball ricocheted into the net.
However, City snatched the points in injury time when Owls goalkeeper James Beadle failed to gather Milan van Ewijk’s clearance inside his own penalty area and Simms charged in to steal the ball from the keeper and finish into an empty net.
Lampard wants his squad to remain grounded following City’s fine run of form and hopes to have a number of key players available again in the near future.
