After a 25-year wait, Coventry secured their return to the Premier League on Friday night with a 1-1 draw away to Blackburn. The club, managed by Frank Lampard, had been relegated to the English second division in 2001.

He's a man who knows the Premier League inside and out. With 609 appearances in the top flight of English football, Frank Lampard is making his grand return to the top division, but this time as a manager. The English coach led Coventry to the Premier League after the club hadn't been in the top flight for 25 years.

A single point on Friday night at Blackburn (1-1) was all it took to secure promotion for Coventry. Since their relegation in 2001, the club from the outskirts of Birmingham, in central England, has endured some very difficult years. Coventry even experienced the fourth tier of English football, League Two, during the 2017/2018 season. After returning to the Championship in 2020, the Sky Blue Army supporters had to wait another six years to celebrate their long-awaited return to the Premier League.

A sweet revenge

Last season, Coventry came very close to returning to the first division. Frank Lampard had guided the Sky Blues from 17th place to the relegation playoff spot before a painful defeat in the play-off semi-finals where they lost to Sunderland after extra time in the second leg (2-3 on aggregate).

But Coventry used that setback to start the 2025-2026 season with a vengeance. The Sky Blues won their first eight matches and remained unbeaten for the first twelve games. This blistering start was confirmed at the halfway point of the season, with Coventry already boasting 51 points from 23 games and 54 goals scored. In Championship history, only Wolverhampton had achieved such a feat at the halfway point, back in the 2008/2009 campaign.

Two failures in the Premier League

While he knows the league intimately as a player, Frank Lampard's first forays into Premier League management were not very successful. His two spells at Chelsea were brief, as was his time at Everton, where he only stayed for a year. At Chelsea, he even had to wait until his seventh match in charge of his former club to secure his first victory.