Frank Lampard says Coventry showed ‘immense’ talent in thrilling win over Derby

Coventry manager Frank Lampard hailed the Sky Blues’ “immense” character and talent after their 3-2 victory over Derby moved the Championship leaders 11 points clear of second-placed Millwall.

Substitute Jack Rudoni scored a brace off the bench as he returned from injury to fire Coventry to an eighth win in nine outings.

Ben Brereton Diaz had equalised twice for the Rams after Frank Onyeka’s spectacular opener on 12 minutes.

Lampard said: “It’s a great win. Tough, tough match, tough opposition. I’m delighted for us to keep the momentum that we had off the back of the international break because it shows immense character, immense talent, immense togetherness.

“It’s a big win for us at this point of the season.

“I felt a goal was coming for Frank, he’s quite hungry to get in there and got the capacity to arrive and shoot but it was a fantastic goal.

“I felt like it affected our performance in the first half because to go 1-0 up in a tense part of the season, it can sometimes make you take less risk and think ‘let’s see this through’.

“We didn’t play our normal game. We played their game, which was a bigger game, which was longer balls, transition and second balls.

“They’re really good at that, they do it a lot, and we can engage in that game but it’s not us at our best here so there was a lot to be said at half time. But second half, that was us.

“I’m delighted for the players that came on, especially Rudi because he wins the game individually, but let’s not forget he’s missed a big part of this season unfortunately for us.

“Other players have come in to get us to where we are now but Rudi’s a fantastic player but to able to bring him on, he’s so hungry, he’s got such talent and wants to score goals and do everything for the team.

“We’ve worked hard as a squad to get it to where it is.”

Derby boss John Eustace, who was himself part of the last Coventry side to be relegated from the Premier League 25 years ago, said he was proud of his side for giving the league leaders a good fight.

Eustace said: “Really disappointed to lose. I thought we were excellent tonight, very proud of the effort of the group.

“We’ve got a couple missing and we could have easily felt sorry for ourselves, but I think it just shows that whenever we’ve had any injuries or setbacks the group have stepped up and performed very well.

“The character of the group has never been in doubt for me, we’ve got a fantastic character of players, that’s why we are where we are in the league.

“But we just lack that little bit of knowhow and quality to see games out at important times and I think that has cost us throughout the season.

“We have dropped some vital points in fantastic positions throughout the year, so it’s something we’ve got to learn from and keep improving.

“We started the game really well and we conceded a really sloppy goal. We grew into the game and played some fantastic football, we really took it to a really good Coventry team and stopped them playing.

“We came in at half-time very confident. We knew Coventry would come out stronger second half, they’ve got a strong squad of players and they can make changes, but we saw a lot of pressure out, conceded another sloppy goal but showed great character to equalise.

“When we did equalise I thought we could go on and win the game but to concede so quickly after that is really disappointing.”