Coventry City will hope they don't follow Derby County fate with Frank Lampard | OneFootball

Frank Lampard has lost in the play-offs and Coventry fans will be hoping there's no repeat of the last time this happened.

Coventry City were beaten at the very last by Sunderland in their Championship play-off semi-final, and this will raise inevitable questions about what happens next at the club over the summer.

Having lost the first leg 2-1 at home, Frank Lampard's team managed to claw back the deficit at the Stadium of Light with a 1-0 lead after 90 minutes, forcing the game into extra-time, only for a goal from Dan Ballard, who scored two minutes into stoppage-time, to break Sky Blue hearts and win the tie for Sunderland.

Frank Lampard has been here before

This isn't the first time that Lampard has suffered play-off heartbreak in the Championship.

He was appointed at Derby County at the end of May 2018 with former manager Gary Rowett having left for Stoke following Derby's defeat to Fulham in the Championship play-off semi-finals.

Expectations were high. Owner Mel Morris had put a lot of money into the transfer kitty, and Derby needed Premier League football in order to justify this expenditure, having also lost in the play-offs in both 2013 and 2016.

"Spygate" would play a huge part in Derby's 2018/19 season

The story that would come to dominate Lampard's first season as a manager landed in January 2019, when Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa admitted that he had sent someone to "spy" on Derby's training sessions after a member of staff had been found to be acting "suspiciously" outside their training ground ahead of a match between the two sides the previous month which Leeds won 2-0.

Leeds were fined £200,000 by the EFL over this, but a feeling of ill-will grew between the clubs, which reached a crescendo when they both finished in the play-off positions and were due to play each other in the semi-finals. Leeds won the first leg 1-0 at Pride Park, but Lampard got his revenge in the second leg at Elland Road when his team dramatically came from two down to win 4-2 and booked themselves a place at Wembley.

There, however, their luck would out. Derby were beaten 2-1 by Aston Villa in the play-off final and haven't come close to a return since.

Lampard gets Chelsea invitation as Derby's overspending consumes them

This defeat would turn out to be Lampard's last game in charge of Derby. He was appointed to the managerial position at Chelsea that summer, and would also have a spell at Everton and a brief return to Stamford Bridge before being appointed to the Coventry job in November last year as the replacement for long-time manager Mark Robins.

Derby, meanwhile, were over-burdened by Morris' spending and have barely troubled the top half of the Championship since, falling into League One in 2022 amid a flurry of points deductions over financial irregularities and a spell in administration. They were rescued that summer through a sale to David Clowes.

But figures and statistics only tell part of this story, because Derby in 2018/19 and Coventry in 2024/25 were in very different places, as football clubs.

Derby's defeat at Aston Villa in 2019 set in motion a chain of events that would almost come to destroy the club, but Coventry in 2024/25 are on the other side of a similar trajectory.

They were a 'crisis club' for years themselves, but their issues were never about the amount of money being put into the team, instead being about a lengthy dispute between the club's then-owners and the local council regarding the ownership of their stadium. The owners eventually sold up in November 2022 to Doug King, and the club have been continuing to progress ever since.

Coventry supporters looking towards the future should take into account that these circumstances were very different. There is, for example, nothing to indicate that Coventry have been wildly overspending in the way that Derby did.

Expectations at Coventry for 2024/25 were not the same as they were at Derby in 2018/19. As a Championship club not in receipt of parachute payments, finishing fifth represents a decent return, despite that play-off defeat.

Furthermore, while Lampard was always going to be tempted by the Chelsea job in 2019, there have been few indications that a bigger club will try and move for him this summer. Given how different the circumstances were at Derby in 2019 and at Coventry six years later, despite their disappointment over this loss, Sky Blues fans may still have a lot to look forward to next season with Lampard in the dugout.

The hope will be that he's here to stay and not about to walk out on Coventry as he did Derby.