adminFrustrated Frank Lampard provides verdict on big referee call and Coventry City’s performance at Ipswich
Coventry City match reaction from CoventryLive as Frank Lampard gives his take on the Sky Blues’ 3-0 defeat at Portman Road
Frank Lampard felt aggrieved that Ipswich Town striker George Hirst should not have been on the pitch to score his side’s second goal as Coventry City slipped to a second Championship defeat of the season.
The Sky Blues boss was happy enough with his team’s performance at Portman Road, particularly in the first half when they had three gilt-edged chances to take a comfortable lead, but frustrated by a big decision by referee Paul Tierney.
The match official booked Josh Eccles in the first half for taking a shot at goal after he’d blown his whistle for a foul just outside the box.
Town front man Hirst then did exactly the same thing at the other end of the pitch but wasn’t shown a yellow card, having already been booked for a foul on Bobby Thomas earlier in the game.
City trailed 1-0 at the break after Sindre Walle Egeli struck home from the edge of the box and Hirst doubled the lead after he raced through to beat goalkeeper Carl Rushworth on the hour before Ivan Azon added a third in the final minute of five for stoppages at the end of the match that ended 3-0 to the hosts.
Asked if Hirst should have still been on the pitch when he scored, Lampard said: “No he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t! And I don’t love yellows for kicking the ball away or whatever you want to say, having a shot.
“But clearly, if Josh Eccles deserves one then Hirst, unfortunately, deserves one. And again, this is nothing personal on Hirst but it’s the rules and it was clearly – if anyone’s going to speak to the referee about the timing of it – it was whistle, stop a little bit, look, shoot, it goes wide just like just Josh did. So unfortunately for us that went against us today.”
As for the three first half chances that evaded his side, with Eccles and Ephron Mason-Clark denied by good saves from Town keeper Christian Walton and Kaine Kesler-Hayden directing a gilt-edged header wide, the head coach said: “Yeah, I think big games like this against good opposition are generally going to be decided by moments like that. But more than that, I think our play in the first half, we were the strong team in the game, for me, and you could feel the stadium feeling it.
“We were very clean on winning second balls and staying and playing with good confidence. Our press was spot on and I think they struggled to play through us and I think that brought some angst to the stadium.
“So everything there in terms of the quality level of opposition that Ipswich are in this league, I was very, very happy with. And obviously when a goal comes and it’s scrappy, crosses, crosses and it drops to them and they score, it gives you that different feeling going into half-time.
“But the players had to understand how they’d approached that first half, in my opinion. And then in the second half, again, probably a similar effect, they scored with a bit of a transition moment where Hirst runs through and scores that goal, and then it’s obviously difficult.
“But I suppose my base point is that there’s no real unhappiness of the way the players approached it from my point of view. I think you can feel that we’re a competitive team today, to say the least. It just wasn’t our day for different reasons.”
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