Derby County told to appoint 'excellent' ex-Nottingham Forest boss if John Eustace leaves for Coventry City | OneFootball

Reports that the Coventry manager Frank Lampard could be under consideration by Chelsea again could be set to have a knock-on effect at Pride Park.

Derby County could be set to lose their manager in the summer after a highly successful season, so FLW have spoken to our Rams fan pundit about who his successor at Pride Park should be.

In the Championship, success can come at a cost. Coventry City have been the strongest team in the division by a long way this season and sit on the cusp of a return to the Premier League for the first time in a quarter of a century.

But such success means that clubs start to earn the attention of the Premier League apex predators. It's being reported that Chelsea are considering giving up on their Liam Rosenior experiment, and that they're considering the Coventry manager Frank Lampard as a replacement for him at the end of the season.

This would leave Coventry needing a replacement themselves, and they are understood to have drawn up contingency plans which involve the Derby County manager John Eustace, who's having a reasonably successful season at Pride Park after having steered them just clear of relegation at the end of 2024-25.

"A hard-working, honest man" - Derby urged to consider Sean Dyche, should John Eustace go to Coventry

Such is the nature of football's food chain that both players and managers want to step up to the highest level that they can work at, so this means that Derby County in turn will now have to draw up contingency plans of their own, and Football League World have spoken to our

resident Rams fan pundit Shaun Woodward about who he thinks Derby should be looking at, should Eustace leave his club.

"If the unthinkable happened and John Eustace left Derby, I think right now I would be looking at someone like Sean Dyche or Graham Potter", Shaun told us, "They're both experienced managers. They've done really well in the Championship."

Of these two, one of them stands out as Shaun's preference: "Sean Dyche, for me, would be excellent because he was at Forest, so there would be an extra bit of spice there, and he's got a history of getting teams promoted from the Championship."

But Shaun wouldn't only be interested in Dyche because of his previous connections with Forest: "He's a no-nonsense manager who can work on a tight-ish budget and he knows how to get the best out of players. He'll make sure that every player gives their all for the badge, as well. He's relatable, a hard-working, honest man."

And while our Rams fan pundit is aware of the reputation that Dyche has built over the years, he's also aware that his club have been unsuccessful in reaching the Premier League in recent years: "He's someone I wouldn't mind seeing at Derby. People might question his style of play, but we've not been in the Premier League for a long, long time, so every manager we've had since hasn't been successful in that regard, so for me it would be Sean Dyche or Graham Potter, and I'm leaning towards Sean Dyche."

Both Coventry City and Derby County could be considered victims of their own success, should they lose their managers

Sean Dyche has become known as a firefighter for clubs that are in danger of relegation from the Premier League, but over almost a decade at Burnley his skill-set was far broader than that. He took the club into the Premier League twice, and after finishing 7th in 2018, he even took them into European football for the first time since 1967.

Dyche also has the advantage over Graham Potter of availability. Potter has just steered Sweden to the World Cup finals and would not be available until after that, but Dyche is currently between jobs and could be available whenever Derby might need him, giving him the summer to retool his team ahead of the start of the new season.

There are a lot of things that need to happen before reaching this eventuality. Having already had him in the hot seat at Stamford Bridge twice before, Chelsea may end up deciding to look elsewhere, should they dispense with the services of Liam Rosenior at the end of the season. While Coventry City have a clear interest in John Eustace, they will have a lot of options as a replacement for Frank Lampard should he leave following promotion to the Premier League.

But with the end of the season now fast approaching, managerial changes are going to come, and it's better to be prepared than not. Both Coventry City and Derby County could be considered victims of their own success. Coventry seem set to return to the Premier League after a 25-year absence, while Derby are pushing for a play-off place after having only avoided relegation on the last day of last season.

An inevitable consequence of this is that the apex predators of the game will start paying attention to successful clubs. Chelsea are above Coventry in this food chain, and should Coventry wrap up their promotion to the Premier League, they will be above Derby in it.

And while there may be disappointment at both The CBS Arena and Pride Park at losing managers who've done a good job with their squads, the only thing that anyone can do is pick themselves up, find a replacement, and move on. For all the annoyance at finding something that works, only for speculation over breaking it up to start almost immediately, there is consolation for the fans of both clubs in that this is only happening to both Coventry City and Derby County because both clubs are in a healthier position than they've been in for years.