FRANK Lampard believes Coventry City ‘made a step forward’ after a hard-fought 1-0 victory against Bristol City ended the Sky Blues three-game winless run.
A second-half goal from Brandon Thomas-Asante settled the game at the Coventry Building Society Arena as City recorded a third straight clean sheet on home turf.
And Lampard praised his side’s character to secure the points despite the absence of influential players Ben Sheaf, Ephron Mason-Clark and Haji Wright through injury.
Lampard said: “It’s important we pick up points in this period while the players are out for sure and make a step forward every time we can and this was one of those because it was a tough match.
“We had to fight to get the clean sheet, and we had to change little tactical details at half time defensively and I thought the players did well with that and then we got a goal I thought we deserved through the pressure we were putting in in the game.
“It was one real moment of quality, because we had a lot of nearly moments and then the one real moment of quality we got the deserved goal.
“We’re in a period at the moment where we’re missing some players, but people are coming in and doing their jobs. We had great character through the team.”
The Sky Blues eventually broke the deadlock just past the hour mark when Jack Rudoni slipped in Thomas-Asante down the right-hand side of the penalty area and the latter lashed an unstoppable shot past O’Leary via the underside of the crossbar.
Thomas-Asante scored his first goal for the Sky Blues since October and, according to Sky Sports, was recently the subject of a bid from City’s Championship rivals Blackburn Rovers.
However, despite reported interest in the forward, Lampard praised the 26-year-old’s work ethic since his arrival as head coach.
Lampard added: “He deserved the faith.
“He didn’t play so many minutes, especially in his favoured position when I first got here because we’ve got some competition there, but his work ethic since he’s come in has been good and his all-round game has been good.
“That last bit has been missing but you have to work towards that, and he deserved that.
“Brandon had a lot to do and finished it off well.”
Coventry are next in action against Blackburn on Tuesday, January 21 with kick-off at 7.45pm at Ewood Park.
