FRANK Lampard praised his Coventry City players after the Sky Blues passed a tricky test against 10-man Watford to remain unbeaten and top of the table.
Coventry raced into a two-goal lead courtesy of goals from Brandon Thomas-Asante and Jamie Allen before Tatsuhiro Sakamoto extended the home side’s lead at the Coventry Building Society Arena.
Watford had James Abankwah sent off before the break but reduced the deficit in the second half as Imran Louza scored from the penalty spot.
The result stretches Coventry’s unbeaten run to 12 matches in the league with the Sky Blues three points clear at the top of the Championship table.
And Lampard praised his players for overcoming a difficult test against Javi Gracia’s Hornets.
Lampard said: “Don’t get used to it [12 games unbeaten] like it’s nothing.
“Maybe it’s a good thing if people are saying ‘why didn’t we score three more in the second half?’
“I’m happy with what the boys are doing. Little things in the game we can improve for sure.
“Football over the duration of a season is not a smooth run, you get tested and the boys got tested.
“We’re playing well but we need to continue. As easy as you can go on these runs it can be the reverse.
“We’ve got to control it ourselves, keep going, keep working and stay fresh.”
Sky Blues stopper Carl Rushworth made a number of fine saves in the first half to keep Watford at bay.
And Lampard admits Coventry wanted to take the sting out of the game in the second half to deal with Watford’s counter-attacking threat.
Lampard added: “It was a difficult game, they had lots of pace, they’re a strong team in this league and we’ve beaten them.
“At half time, I would have taken three-nil, we don’t want to concede, I knew they had a counter-attacking threat.
“We did a lot of damage in the first half, we want to go out and score more goals but they had a threat on the transition.
“We had to be a bit careful about how we played, I was happy for us to take the sting out of the game and it became a bit functional.
“It’s important if you want to win games. You can get loose [against 10-men] against quality opposition.
“I would have taken [the result] before the game.”
Coventry are next in action against Wrexham on Friday, October 31 with kick-off at 8pm at the Racecourse Ground.
