Coventry City match reaction from CoventryLive as hat-trick hero Haji Wright set challenge by pundit and Sky Blues boss after match winning display
Coventry City striker Haji Wright celebrates his first goal against Middlesbrough
Frank Lampard has challenged Haji Wright to bring out the Didier Drogba in his game after his match winning performance helped Coventry City sink Middlesbrough in Monday night’s thrilling top-of-the-table victory at the CBS Arena.
The USA striker scored nine in nine games (including one in the cup) at the start of the campaign but managed just two more in the following four and a half months until this week’s impressive hat-trick shot him up the Championship goal scoring charts to 13, just two behind the division’s leader Zan Vipotnik of Swansea, on 15.
Lampard sees Wright as his first choice striker and has invested a lot of time in trying to bring out the best in the player as a big, strong and quick number nine for the Sky Blues – someone he sees as having similar attributes to his former team-mate and legendary Chelsea front man Drogba.
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Interviewed after the 3-1 win on Paramount+, pundit Nigel Reo-Coker told the 27-year-old that he’d spoken to Lampard at the start of the season and he told him that he wanted him to play down the middle and drew comparisons with Didier Drogba.
Asked who he compares himself to or models himself on, Wright replied: “Didier was a great player and the gaffer has told me a couple of times that he would like to see that out of me, and at times I have been able to show that physical dominance. And I think I can work on doing that more consistently.”
Reo-Coker told Wright that he wanted to see more from him, that he believes he has all the attributes but there’s so much more to his game to be a lot more aggressive and show more hunger on the pitch. Asked what he feels he needs to do to improve his game and take it to another level, the centre-forward agreed: “Yeah, like you said, show more hunger and I’m trying to be more consistent in my play, do what I do well more consistently, try to impose myself on the opposition. I’m a big frame, big striker and I try to use that on other players.”
Commenting on Wright’s performance, Lampard said: “I’m delighted for Haji because strikers get judged so much on goals. He flew out of the blocks this season then had a little bit of an injury while he was away with his national team and when he came back it had broken his rhythm a lot.
“But there’s so much talent there. Haji is so laid back off the pitch but when you get him, not angry but really feeling that this is a competitive game, all those attributes came through. You saw that tonight.
“People will question a striker but that has to give him the confidence to reproduce that.”
He added: “Things haven’t dropped for Haji recently and it happens for a striker, and then they’re the first ones to get critiqued at that point. But to be fair to him, he keeps his head down, he’s been working hard and we know what Haji can be like when he’s on that form.
“And if there’s something for Haji to come out of it, it’s continue with that, continue being the problem that he was for their defenders all night; the work ethic of his performance because then it’s about his natural talent to come up against anybody in this league.
“So yeah, great, I’m really pleased for him and he has to take that forward.”
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