CURTIS Davies believes Frank Lampard is in it for the long haul at Coventry City and will want to establish the club in the Premier League.
Davies achieved promotion to the Premier League with Hull City via the play-offs in 2015/16 and also won the League One title with Luton Town at the start of his career.
The former defender also scored in the 2013/14 FA Cup final for Hull against Arsenal in a career which spanned almost 600 league games.
He also featured for Derby in Lampard’s first season as a manager back in the 2018/19 campaign.
And with Coventry closing in on promotion to the Premier League, Davies does not expect Lampard to have his head turned by any interest from elsewhere.
Speaking to Hajper, Davies said: “I think the only way I can describe it with Frank Lampard is that he’s in this for the journey.
“I know it sounds silly because everybody wants to be the best, and he is in it to be the best.
“But having started at Derby, where a lot of eyebrows were raised when he took the job because we had just made the play-offs with Gary Rowett and it was his first managerial role.
“But we reached the play-off final and unfortunately lost to a stacked Aston Villa side, which is understandable.
“Then he got the Chelsea job. Even then, he probably got it too soon. However, in that first year, considering they had a transfer embargo, he had to bring through a lot of the kids.
“The following season, they are in the Champions League quarter-final, he lost his job, but Thomas Tuchel took over and they won the Champions League.
“It wouldn’t have happened without Frank laying the foundations and getting that group of young players into the Champions League in the first place.
“I think the thing with Frank is that if he gets Coventry promoted, I truly see him staying there. I don’t think he’s the type to have his head turned.
“He’ll want to finish the project and stabilise Coventry as a Premier League team. His reputation will then be high.
“It will only be when Coventry’s ambitions don’t match his, depending on how well he’s doing, that he may get a little bit of an itch to start looking elsewhere.
“That’s not to say he’s going to jump from Coventry straight back to Chelsea or anything like that again.
“He’s driven by wanting to be good, similar to the way people underestimated him as a player, and he went on to be one of the best ever in the Premier League.
“He wants that to happen as a manager as well.”
