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Frank Lampard ready for challenge of Premier League return with Coventry City
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- Frank Lampard ready for challenge of Premier League return with Coventry City
It is the dilemma for any promoted team, especially one going into the intensely competitive English Premier League. How do you build a team that will stay in the top division without casting aside the core of the team that earned a place in the top flight in the first place?
That is the challenge for Frank Lampard , who managed Coventry City to a Championship title, falling just seven times and finishing 11 points clear at the top. Lampard now must try to survive in the Premier League.
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"The reality is you see this challenge, more often than not in recent times, means the team go up and it comes straight back down," Lampard told USA TODAY Sports. "I think we have to find our own way to try and stay in the league and hopefully do better and perform like the Sunderlands and Leeds probably did last year, because they they stayed up relatively comfortably in the end.
"The step up is big. We've already brought in some players that we're very happy with, and we're looking to bring in more to help us. But ... the group that got us there, they also had this incredible spirit and togetherness that I don't want to break up completely."
Yet, there will be players who were key in the Championship who won't play major roles - or already have made way. That's required if a promoted team, even one that was very good in the second division, is going to stay up.
Coventry has signed Ghana midfielder Caleb Yirenkyi for more than £23 million, and it took a similar sum to secure goalkeeper Carl Rushworth , last year's starting goalkeeper who was on loan from Brighton . Nigeria international Taiwo Awoniyi signed this week from Nottingham Forest , giving the attack a player proven in the Premier League, along with 19-year-old forward Sidiki Cherif , one for the future who joins from Fenerbahçe.
