DOUG King felt Coventry City ‘lost their way’ before he decided to replace former manager Mark Robins with current Sky Blues boss Frank Lampard.
Lampard and King spoke frankly on the Coventry Building Society Arena pitch following the club’s promotion to the Premier League as champions.
In a video posted on the club’s YouTube channel, Lampard and King discussed various topics since the former’s arrival as Sky Blues head coach.
King’s first major decision as Coventry chairman saw the Sky Blues chief replace popular boss Robins with Lampard in November 2024.
The club sacked Robins with Coventry 17th in the Championship table following a slump in form after the club reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup the previous campaign.
And while King refused to place any expectations on Lampard, the City owner felt the appointment would prove a wake-up call to the players.
King said: “We’d been on a good trajectory. We finished ninth the season prior [to Lampard’s appointment] despite losing five out of the last six.
“We just lost our way. I felt we had a good toolkit if Frank could unlock it.
“We were lost I felt at that time. It was a wake-up moment for the players because Frank is who he is.
“I said a few words and Frank got down to business.
“I was expecting Frank to come in, have a look at it, get to work and if we get the processes right we’ll get the results.
“It’s worked out beautifully for me because we’ve got the trophy with the club colours on.”
Lampard arrived at the CBS Arena off the back of challenging spells in charge of Chelsea and Everton respectively.
And Lampard admits he had to make a judgement call early in his reign at the CBS Arena regarding the quality of the squad and what he could change tactically.
Lampard said: “I remember our first meeting very well, I had a good feeling coming out of it.
“I was very aware of Mark’s [Robins] legacy, the fan reaction, where I was at that point. I wasn’t fearful of it, I just wanted to get a sense of it.
“My first challenge with the squad was, what’s this team going to look like with me? Mark had tried to play a back four and then gone back to a back five.
“Clearly from the points gained and where we were in the table, something wasn’t quite right.
“It was trying to work out whether this is a back four or back five squad. I’d heard a lot of stuff about this is a really talented squad but the position in the league didn’t say that.
“Then it’s making a judgement call on how true that is and what impact you can have. I think I’ve learnt that.
“Going back to Chelsea as an interim, I went in and thought I can affect this but looking back I should have made a call that was different in a football sense.
“This one I wanted to nail and get it right. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work. It’s still a little bit surreal.”
The decision to sack Robins proved largely unpopular with Sky Blues supporters at the time.
However, Lampard quietly began a rebuild which ultimately led to the club’s return to the Premier League in his first full season at the helm.
And Lampard admits he had to strip back Coventry’s tactical set-up upon taking the job to begin making improvements.
Lampard added: “I’m quite good at blocking out noise in terms of fans who didn’t want Mark Robins to leave and for me to get the job.
“I had the experience of coming in midway through a season at Everton. Everton was very much a confidence crisis of the whole club.
“It was trying to work out, if that was there how can we change that? That for me was personal interactions with the players to get them feeling you’re coming in to help every one of them.
“The next thing is clarity of the job. Strip it back. The first thing we did was the off the ball work. That was something I found visually to be off point.
“The distances were too big, we were too easy to play through. Let’s get that bit sorted out because that will tighten us up.
“Every manager will come in and go I want to get them fitter. We actively had to get on that one.
“We were quite clear as staff and got some important things across quite quickly where we wanted to get them.
“The defensive line was a big deal for us. We got the line up the pitch. That connection [with the players] was there quite quickly.”
