\n<\/p>\n
Lampard arrived at Coventry City in 2024 with something to prove and one clear objective: reaching the Premier League. As he assessed his new squad, Haji Wright quickly stood out as a player who could help take them there – just not in the role he had been playing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen I\u2019ve come in, you evaluate the squad,\u201d Lampard recalls, \u201cand, as a coach, you always want strikers who can score goals because they win you games, effectively…Haji was playing a little bit on the left wing sometimes, and I just saw his profile as an absolute No. 9.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen we had a conversation, that’s exactly what he wants to be. So I think that was a nice marriage between him and me early on, where I was like, \u2018I see him as a nine, and he was like, \u2018I want to be a nine\u2019. That was a good start.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Wright has, of course, been one of the Championship’s top strikers during his tenure. After scoring 19 goals in his first season, he scored 12 in 27 in his second as Coventry fell short in the promotion playoff. They wouldn’t need a playoff last season, as Wright’s 17 goals led the team as they won the league and Premier League promotion outright.<\/span><\/p>\n Lampard\u2019s belief in him was a key part of that. Strangely enough, so was that time as a winger prior to Lampard\u2019s arrival. In some ways, it prepared him for the different challenges he\u2019d face once he was moved back inside.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt allowed me to be able to create my own chances,\u201d Wright told <\/span>GOAL<\/strong><\/b> last year. \u201cObviously on the wing, you’re a bit more isolated, and you’re not necessarily having players create chances for you, so most of the time, it\u2019s driving to do it yourself if you’re that type of winger. When I was a winger, I’m more the kind of winger who’s gonna give you goals as opposed to assists.<\/span><\/p>\n It allowed me to be more comfortable on the ball, to be able to get into spaces and turn on it and progress the ball as well. Then it allowed me to improve my defensive work, which is also positive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The ability to do all of those little things will be vital, because, at this higher level, Coventry will need every last one of them.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lampard arrived at Coventry City in 2024 with something to prove and one clear objective:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}