Away from the Premier League, the biggest story in the Football League is Frank Lampard’s Coventry City absolutely romping the Championship.

Super Frank’s Sky Blues are undefeated, scored the most goals of any team in the league pyramid and a prediction from an Opta SuperComputer has them with an over 50% chance of automatic promotion. Make of that what you will.

Why are Coventry City any good?

Other than optimists painted blue and looking at the sky through blue-tinted glasses, few predicted Coventry would be challenging any higher than the Championship play-offs this season.

And it was a fair assumption. You have to go back to 2001 to find the last time the club finished higher than fifth in the second division. Around them, other teams spent much more money and were putting together far more convincing arguments for being automatic promotion contenders.

So it’s fair to say that their incredible start to the year has caught everyone by surprise. As to how they have managed to amass 28 points from 12 games, the answer is simple: Coventry are really good at both ends of the pitch.

So far this season, they have scored the most goals per match, created the most xG per match, had the most shots on target per match and created the most Big Chances.

Crucially, they are also finishing those chances. Of the 41 they have created, Coventry have converted 34. Ipswich have created the second most chances at 35 but only 17 of them have been converted.

On average, Coventry score 2.83 goals a game. You have to go back to 1903 and Manchester City’s 95 goals in a 34-game season to find a better second-tier tally.

Another important aspect is that the goals are not all coming from one player. Brandon Thomas-Asante is the Championship’s top scorer but has only accounted for 26.5% of Coventry’s goals this year. Ten different players have been on the scoresheet so far this season.

Coventry go into every game knowing they can outscore their opponent, but the reality is that a lot of the time, just one goal would be good enough.

While the Sky Blues are finding plenty of ways to breach their opponents’ defences, the same cannot be said for the reverse.

In a relatively quiet summer transfer period, one key signing was the arrival of goalkeeper Carl Rushworth on loan from Brighton. He has already made history by going a club-record 613 minutes without conceding.

So far this year, the 24-year-old has kept six clean sheets, the league’s best, and only Middlesbrough and Stoke have conceded fewer goals. James Trafford’s clean sheet record of 29 is still some way off but does not look entirely unrealistic.

A strong attack combined with a solid defence has meant Coventry have a +25 goal difference this season and lead the league by three points, but can they go the distance?

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Is the Coventry hype real?

There is nothing like context to bring fans back down to earth.

Coventry’s start to the campaign has been undeniably excellent but they have benefited from a kind fixture list.

Of the 12 opponents Coventry have faced so far this year, just two of them were in the top half last year. Coventry have also already played two of the three newly promoted teams, while their one game against the relegated Premier League teams so far was a 0-0 draw against Leicester.

Points tally-wise, it is also nothing too special. Sunderland were on the same tally of 28 last season. Leicester and Ipswich both had more at this stage in the 2023/24 campaign.

Around them, Coventry have also been helped by the three relegated teams being surprisingly poor.

In the 2024/25 season, relegated Burnley were second at this stage with Sheffield United in fourth. In 2023/24, all three relegated teams were in the top five after 12 games. Luton are the outlier, being 22nd at this stage last year and ultimately dropping down to League One.

This year though, Leicester are the highest relegated in 10th. Ipswich, albeit having played one game less, are 12th, while Sheffield United’s decision to sack Chris Wilder and go for an ‘AI-led strategy’ resulted in the sandwich-hating manager being back in the dugout and the club in 22nd.

Their mixed starts have left the likes of Coventry, Middlesbrough and Millwall to capitalise and fill the absence at the top of the table.

But the season is still young. Conventional wisdom would suggest that teams like Ipswich, who spent a great deal in the summer and have a manager who has won promotion in the past, will click at some point.

The question is whether Coventry or another team will be too far ahead when that click does eventually come.

Next, Coventry face another promoted team in Wrexham, meaning Lampard’s winning run should continue and his success at the unashamedly titled Coventry Building Society Arena has again raised questions of where he fits in the manager pecking order.

Is Frank Lampard a good Championship manager?

When Lampard departed Chelsea in the summer of 2023, you could be forgiven for thinking his time as a manager was done.

Back in as caretaker boss for his second stint in the Stamford Bridge dugout, Lampard ‘earned’ a PPM of 0.45 in the 11 games he oversaw, guiding Chelsea to 12th in the table. This came after a poor stint at Everton where he was close to getting them relegated before being sacked and the big red ‘push for Sean Dyche emergencies’ button was hit.

His first stint at Chelsea got him a lot of plaudits as he made the best of a transfer embargo to give chances to young players but once the club were free to spend again, he struggled to make a real impact.

Lampard is part of an era of managers coming from England’s ‘Golden Generation’ of the early 2000s and almost all of them have been poor.

Success at Rangers is an outlier in an otherwise underwhelming Steven Gerrard CV. Wayne Rooney, to his credit, has not said no to a job offer but aside from firefighting at Derby, he too has not achieved much. Even Paul Scholes gave it a go, taking over his local Oldham but lasting just seven games.

Of that generation, Lampard has had the most success behind Gerrard. His first job came at Derby where he guided a youthful squad, featuring Mason Mount, to the play-off final. On the way, he defeated Marcelo Bielsa, a man hailed as one of football’s greatest minds.

He was undeniably burnt by the Premier League but his success at Coventry so far has again raised his stock. The question is though, is Lampard just a good Championship manager and not one that can excel in the Premier League?

There is no shame in carving out that niche job role, the likes of Neil Warnock and Ian Holloway have been in the game for decades off the back of similar gigs, but for someone who is fourth in the all-time top Premier League scorers list, he may see himself as destined for loftier heights.

If Coventry do go up, a Sunderland-esque spending spree will be needed for any hope of survival, but Lampard must first guide them there in what would be the most significant achievement of his managerial career so far. Do that and then it is time to prove he is good enough for the Premier League.

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