An emotional Frank Lampard says earning promotion to the Premier League as Coventry boss is “right up there” among the best achievements of his glittering career.
Coventry secured promotion to the Premier League for the first time in 25 years after Bobby Thomas' late equaliser snatched a 1-1 draw at Blackburn.
Lampard earned the first promotion of his managerial career - an achievement which he believes rivals winning Premier League titles and the Champions League as a player.
"I'm proud," he told Your Site. "Sometimes, all managers talk about the players, but I am proud, and I'm proud of myself, the staff and the boys.
"We drove up 15 months ago in a people carrier, and we went into a bit of an unknown, as you always go into a job.
"We've fallen in love with the players, how they've reacted, the fan base, how it's reacted.
"So it's right up there for me for what I may have achieved. I was fortunate to be in great Chelsea teams. Winning the Champions League and winning leagues was amazing. Sometimes I could thank Didier Drogba or John Terry for that.
"Now, to do this with this club in the circumstances that we've done it, for me, [is] overachieving. I'm not belittling the players there. They've raised their game up by pure work, and I'm very proud to be the manager of that."
The former England international was nearly brought to tears during the interview amid jubilant scenes at Ewood Park.
"It's amazing," he said. "I've talked before about the fan base, what they've gone through and all the disappointments, and they've stuck with the club and all the stories. And then now they get this moment. It's a serious, serious football club. I didn't even realise.
"I knew the history. I knew Coventry growing up. Coventry were a Premier League, First Division team. But this incredible fan base and what it means to the city, and what these players have achieved.
"We came in 15 months ago, 17th in the league. Mark Robins has done an incredible job to get them back up where they were. But then to go and get automatic promotion as a non-parachute team with three games to go. Those boys there, how they've listened and trained and everything they've done every day. It makes me feel emotional because they're so great to work with, and they deserve every second of celebrating and getting it done.
"This league is hard. It's getting harder because even the teams that are fighting for relegation, teams that have got players and squads and that. People think it's easy. It's not. It's harder. And these boys have managed to achieve something pretty unique and absolutely special and incredible. I'm delighted."
Coventry last played top-flight football in 2001, when they were relegated from the Premier League having been a permanent fixture since its foundation in 1992.
The Sky Blues' lowest ebb came when they dropped into League Two in 2017, but they have fought their way back and, after losing to Luton in the play-off final in 2023 and suffering a heartbreaking semi-final play-off defeat at Sunderland last season, have stormed the Championship under Lampard this season to secure their Premier League return with three matches to spare.
The 47-year-old said: "These boys went from 17th to fifth last year, and Sunderland beat us, and we were so unlucky in that semi, so the resilience to come back again and to be able to push again and do the consistent stuff.
"Automatic promotion wasn't in our plan. We sat down in the summer, we talked about how perfect can the season be, considering what we are and what we can do and everything and we were like, can we get in the play-offs? Can we get maybe third or fourth to play the home tie second, which we didn't do last year? Now these boys have done that and they've got up with three games to go.
"I felt a little bit, there's always a stress and a panic last year, we got into the play-offs in the last moment, at Everton we stayed up with two games to go, Chelsea got into the Champions League last game. Thank God I haven't got to do that this year.
"We want to go and win it, don't get me wrong, but it's such a good feeling that the lads have managed to get it over the line at this point."
