Frank Lampard hails Coventry’s character after penalty shootout victory

Coventry manager Frank Lampard praised his young squad’s character after they beat Sheffield Wednesday on penalties in the FA Cup third round.

Liam Kitching put the Sky Blues ahead in the first half before Anthony Musaba equalised deep into stoppage time to force extra time and penalties.

Oliver Dovin saved Olaf Kobacki’s penalty after Jamal Lowe had spooned his effort over the crossbar to send last season’s semi-finalists into the fourth round.

Lampard said: “We’re really young lads – Norman (Bassette) to step up and Oliver (Dovin) to make a save, even people like Josh (Eccles) to take one.

“I know some have taken them before but they were very confident to put their hand up to take them, which is obviously a great sign. And I think we deserved it.

“Sheffield Wednesday are a good opponent and they played well but I think we deserved it for how we approached the whole game.”

He added: “I am happy with the performance. I felt we deserved the second goal, there was one disallowed.

“It was a goal so I don’t know what the referee saw, but there were some strange decisions there throughout the game.

“But there was some good play…some good situations with the front two who were lively, and I was pleased with them.

“I thought there was an improvement at the front end of the pitch, so that can happen that you don’t score.”

Sheffield Wednesday manager Danny Rohl admitted he was sad to exit the FA Cup but felt there were a lot of positives to take from the game.

The German said: “Big credit to my team to come back again – we have to win this game.

“We deserve to win this game. Especially second half, we control the game, we dominate the game, we come to the final third with really good situations, but if you only have three shots on target it’s not enough for all the things we are doing.

“To come to Coventry and to dominate the game like this, it’s where we are at the moment, but we lost this game and for me we have to decide this game before the penalty shootout.

“When you have so many situations, two against two, one-v-one, two against one situations and you don’t come to a dangerous finish, then there’s an issue here.

“It looks really nice what we are doing, and there was no feeling that the opponent had a solution against us.

“I think all-in-all, take the positives from this game but I am a little bit sad about the result at the end.”