Players handling play-off pressure well - Lampard
Frank Lampard hopes his side keep up their push for the play-offs on Monday against Hull
- Published
Coventry City boss Frank Lampard has been speaking to BBC CWR before the trip to relegation-battling Hull City on Monday night (20:00 BST).
Here are the main takeaways as the Sky Blues look to keep their play-off bid on track:
Victor Torp suffered a twisted ankle in the 1-0 win over Portsmouth on Wednesday and is likely to be unavailable. "We hope it's a low level ankle ligament one so we'll have to assess it," Lampard said.
On facing Hull: "It's a tough game at any time going to Hull but they're fighting for their own points for their reasons and so are we. They've beaten some big teams recently as well, took some big scalps. We have to be absolutely mentally focused and ready for a very tough evening."
It "doesn't matter" who you face at this stage of the season, Lampard said. "You can't read your fixture list and over-analyse it because we've seen big teams at the top of the league lose points in recent weeks in games. Motivation comes in different ways. Teams at the bottom, it can bring a real lift."
Lampard admitted it is "hard" not to look at other results, especially with Coventry playing after every other team at the weekend. "But pushing it to the side and focusing is a really important skill at this point," he said. "It's important we just think about what we do."
On whether the players are handling the pressure of the play-off battle well: "They are. Just in their demeanour and how they are, the drive of the group. I think we've seen that in recent performances. The Portsmouth game, scoring in the last minute, that shows character - and also maybe where we've come from because we were in a relegation position, looking over our shoulder and now we've moved up the table. We don't have less to lose, we've all got the same to lose at this point but the change in feel is a big thing for us."