Frank Lampard admits that he needs to manage his Coventry City squad as they prepare for their second game in the space of seven days when they take on Premier League Ipswich Town in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
The Sky Blues boss had the luxury of being able to field near his strongest available team in the third round, when they saw off Sheffield Wednesday after extra-time and penalties, but concedes some of his players who haven’t been getting so many minutes of late may get their chance against the Tractor Boys.
Kieran McKenna’s men travel to the CBS Arena on the back of four straight defeats, having only won three top flight games all season to leave them battling relegation at second from bottom of the table. And although McKenna made ten changes against Bristol Rovers in the third round, which they won 3-0 at Portman Road, Lampard admits he doesn’t know what his team will face on Saturday afternoon.
“And there are big differences; we played on Wednesday, they didn’t. We play on Tuesday, they don’t, so what they’ll do, we don’t know. There could be some more rotations or it could be fewer. We don’t know that so we just have to approach the game expecting their strongest team, expecting whatever changes they make keeps them pretty much as strong.”
Asked, bearing in mind City’s schedule of three games in the space of seven days whether he will be making use of his whole squad, Lampard admitted: “Yeah, and we’re not got the biggest squad so some players that haven’t been getting so many minutes may get opportunities, individually, to show themselves. And we’ll need the freshness, definitely, with that quick turnaround. It’s a busy part in what is already a pretty long season, so we’ll have to use it as well as we can.”
Players who could come in include the likes of defenders Luis Binks and Jay Dasilva, midfielder Josh Eccles, wingers Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Raphael Borges Rodrigues and striker Norman Bassette. Meanwhile, right wing-back Jack Burroughs could provide a rest for Milan van Ewijk.
City came up short against the Championship leaders Leeds United on Wednesday night’s 2-0 home defeat. Asked if there’s likely to be much of a gulf between Leeds and their FA Cup opponents, Ipswich, the City boss said: “I don’t know, it’s not for me to decide, I suppose, as such.
“Ipswich were a fantastic side in the Championship last year. They’ve also gone and added to their squad and are competing in the Premier League, playing at that level week in and week out, so it feels like they’ll be the strongest team we have played against, pound for pound.
“But maybe that’s where the Leeds game can provide some valuable little pointers for us in terms of that step up in quality and what it means for us with and without the ball, because we could be better than we were against Leeds on both fronts. So we’ll see.”
Lampard clearly wants a cup run but asked if he fears it could be a distraction from the league, bearing in mind how last season’s FA Cup success affected the team’s play-off form, he said: “Well, I wasn’t here so it’s difficult to absolutely talk about that. I’ve heard it mentioned but for me, Cup runs are generally always good for confidence. You want to manage the squad, you want to have as many games and FA Cup games deep into the competition are great things.
“So you know, we like to think we want to win every game that we play. You approach every game as it comes and I’m not going with any other thought than trying to win the game to get to the next round.”
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