Frank Lampard praises Coventry ‘energy’ in hitting back to beat Sheffield United

Manager Frank Lampard lauded Coventry’s second-half performance as the Championship leaders came from behind to beat Sheffield United 3-1 at the CBS Arena.

Former Sky Blues defender Sam McCallum put the struggling Blades ahead midway through the first half before goals from Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Bobby Thomas and Brandon Thomas-Asante helped Coventry respond well to their first league loss of the season at Wrexham.

It signalled a third consecutive defeat for Sheffield United, who remain in the relegation zone.

“They’re no mugs obviously,” said Lampard. “Their league position is what it is but they’re a good team and I’ve got a lot of respect for Chris [Wilder] so I knew it was a tough match.

“The second half was what we want to be, what we’ve been for big parts of the season, real energy in the team with the way we play.

“We made little tactical tweaks but the main tweak was our approach to the game, how fast we were and how much pressure we put on them and that changed the course of the match.

“If we want to have success this season it has to be off that. If you look at our big performances this year, they have been that.

“When we’ve blown teams away, which fortunately we have at times, it’s been more power, pace, play forward, run forward, support each other and move forward and we do that a lot.

“I know you can’t always do it for 90 minutes but we have to believe that’s what we can be as a team and that was there in the second half.

“I was delighted with the way they saw the game out, a lot of corners later on in the game, but we dug in and you have to sometimes.”

Blades boss Wilder bemoaned his side’s inability to deal with set pieces, from which Coventry scored two of their goals, despite an encouraging first half from the Blades.

“A lot of good things, toe-to-toe with the best team in the league who are scoring goals left, right and centre, winning games left, right and centre,” said Wilder.

“The goals are avoidable, a long throw we switch off on the edge of the box after half-time and the second goal you’ve seen that one as well, not dealt with that, it’s unfortunate these things happen.

“I thought we were in the game for long periods, especially late on, and we just have to deal with that direct play and we’ve not really dealt with it.

“We scored our goal from a set play, they scored two from set plays.

“Up to half-time I was delighted with the game plan, delighted with the contribution of the players.

“They will always cause you a few issues with the quality that they’ve got but I thought we caused them just as many in terms of how we went about it and were well in the game.

“I didn’t feel there was two goals in the game but there it is, a team that’s got confidence and belief with a team that’s struggling a little bit.

“But up to half-time there was enough in it for me to encourage me and everybody and the support that we can get a result.”