Everyone has challenges in this job – Lampard sympathy for under-pressure Rooney

Coventry boss Frank Lampard has sympathy with what his Plymouth counterpart Wayne Rooney is going through after their first managerial clash ended with a thumping 4-0 win for the Sky Blues.

The hosts produced an impressive response to receiving a heavy loss of their own at Portsmouth just before Christmas as they pulled further clear of the Sky Bet Championship relegation zone following first-half goals from Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Josh Eccles (two) and Ephron Mason-Clark.

For Plymouth, however, this was another miserable day on the road as they remained bottom of the table, now three points adrift of safety.

Lampard said about his former England colleague: “The longer you do this for – and I’m not an absolute young manager anymore, in a way – you understand there is a time that this can happen.

“You try and find balance, I’m not going to say too much [to Rooney].

“We’ll try and chat football because everyone has challenges in this job, it’s not for me to comment on Wayne’s job there as much as it would be for him to discuss what goes on here.

“It was a game we won, we played well and I absolutely wish him the best.

“It was a really good performance. Last week was difficult, but it happens in this league and it’s always more important how you react to things.

“We’ve had a good week with the lads, today they performed really well, we looked good at times early in the game and then kept going, kept creating and being more clinical.”

Coventry were ahead after just five minutes as Sakamoto headed in Ben Sheaf’s cross before Eccles doubled their lead with a low drive.

Mason-Clark then beat the offside trap to add a third for the Sky Blues before Eccles scored his second just before half-time, with Plymouth then losing Callum Wright to a late red card.

Rooney said: “What I was really disappointed with was the goals we conceded because we know what Coventry’s strengths were.

“We identified them, especially about putting crosses into the box towards the back post and then to concede so early on exactly on what we knew they’d do was very disappointing.

“The big issue for us today was lads didn’t switch on quick enough.

“It’s a silly tackle [from Wright]. I think he has a wild tackle just before that, and I get it, I’ve been there myself as a player.

“It’s disappointing because we prepared well for the game, we’ve done everything we felt was right for the game and then all the fans paid a lot of money, because the ticket prices were quite high.

“They’ve obviously travelled over this [festive] period and to come and see the performance, especially in the first half, they’ve every right to be disappointed.”