Frank Lampard has dropped big Coventry City, Haji Wright prediction - it needs to come true | OneFootball

Coventry City manager Frank Lampard will hope striker Haji Wright can live up to his bold prediction next season.

Coventry City will be hoping to challenge for promotion from the Championship once again next season.

After a slow start to last season, Coventry made the decision to part company with long-serving manager Mark Robins in November, and it is fair to say it took time for his replacement, Frank Lampard, to make an impact.

The Sky Blues sat as low as 15th in the table in early January, but Lampard then inspired a significant upturn in form that saw his side emerge as serious promotion contenders, and despite an inconsistent end to the season, they eventually finished in fifth place.

Coventry more than matched Sunderland for long spells of their play-off semi-final, and they were arguably much the better side in the second leg at the Stadium of Light, but Dan Ballard's 122nd-minute header won the tie for the Black Cats, condemning Lampard's men to another season in the Championship.

As they begin preparations for the new season, it has been a relatively quiet start to the summer for the Sky Blues, but they have still brought in two new signings, with Miguel Angel Brau arriving on a free transfer from Granada and Kaine Kesler-Hayden joining from Aston Villa for a fee of around £3.5 million.

However, while Coventry are likely to make further new additions before the end of the transfer window, recent comments from Lampard suggest that he may be pinning his hopes on one of his existing players to fire the club to promotion next season.

Frank Lampard issues bold Haji Wright, Coventry City prediction amid injury update

Coventry were without talisman Haji Wright for almost four months last season due to an ankle injury, and the striker is set for another spell on the sidelines after sustaining an Achilles problem while on international duty with the United States national team earlier in the summer.

Lampard confirmed that Wright will miss the start of the new season as he continues his recovery from his latest setback, but he has travelled with the rest of the squad for the pre-season training camp in Portugal, and the Sky Blues chief predicted that a big year could be ahead for the 27-year-old.

"Haji sustained an injury when he was away with the USA team. I think we’re two-and-a-bit weeks into what would you call his rehab from the moment he got the injury, which is an Achilles injury," Lampard said, quoted by Coventry Live.

"Hopefully it’s nothing major. He has done everything right and he has been off his feet for a few weeks. He was really keen to come here to Portugal with us, which I was really pleased with and it’s the right thing to have him around the group. We can do all the work with him here and Haji is a big player for us and I was very keen for him to be here with us."

"He’s good with the work, he gets on it with it and even for me, this is my first full season with the players and I really want to get to work with the players and Haji individually, as he works through his rehab, we want to get him fit for the start of the season hopefully and I think it can be a big year for him," Lampard continued.

"He has so much talent and I want to work with him closely and I want to see the best of him."

Wright became Coventry's record signing when he joined the club from Turkish side Antalyaspor for a fee of £7.7 million in August 2023, and his goalscoring record since his arrival at the CBS Arena makes for good reading.

After a tough start to life in English football, Wright ended his first year at the CBS Arena with a total of 19 goals and eight assists in 50 games, and despite his long injury lay-off last season, he again hit double figures for goals, netting 12 times and registering one assist in 31 appearances.

Wright made an explosive return from injury as he scored a hat-trick against Sunderland in March, but rather than that being the start of a late-season purple patch, the US international found the back of the net on just two further occasions before the end of the campaign.

The Sky Blues' place in the top six came under threat in the latter part of the season as they fell to defeats against the likes of Derby County, Sheffield United, Burnley, Plymouth Argyle and Luton Town, and while Wright was still getting back up to speed after four months out, his lack of goals was a source of frustration for supporters.

Wright was also a relatively anonymous figure during both legs of Coventry's play-off semi-final against Sunderland, and having failed to step up when his team needed him the most in those games, he will be expected to lead a promotion charge next season once he returns to full fitness.

Given that Ellis Simms and Brandon Thomas-Asante are not particularly prolific scorers and Norman Bassette appears to be out of favour, much of the goalscoring burden is likely to fall on Wright's shoulders next season, and he will be under pressure to fulfil Lampard's bold prediction.