A large amount of intrigue surrounded the summer appointment of Frank Lampard as the new Derby County coach. The former England international had an exceptional playing career but had yet to test himself as a coach whilst spending time out of the game. Hes attended coach education courses, during which he had done some media work without suggesting he was preparing to move immediately into a high profile role.
With that said, he chose his first opportunity intelligently with Derby, having qualified for the playoffs last season before they were beaten at the first hurdle by the eventual winners Fulham. Their coach from last season Gary Rowett chose to accept a somewhat controversial move to relegated Stoke City and the squad is certainly strong enough to remain competitive at Championship level.
The first act as Derby coach for Lampard was to move to appoint the Chelsea U-23 coach Jody Morris as his assistant. Whilst Morris is also relatively young he has impressed with his work in the Chelsea youth system both in terms of results and individual player development and he was already well thought of by observers within the game.
During pre-season, Derby have been impressive with positive results including a win against the best team in the Championship last season, Wolves. As ever though, results in pre-season are not necessarily an indicator for regular season success and an opening league fixture against Reading and their coach Paul Clement would certainly not prove to be a comfortable baptism for Lampard as a coach.
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Throughout the pre-season period, Lampard has preferred a 4-3-3 system with a single striker supported by two wide players who stay high and attack in towards the penalty area from the wide area.
Lampard and Morris have made good use of their knowledge of the U-23 system with the signings on loan of Mason Mount, from Chelsea, and Harry Wilson, from Liverpool. Both youngsters were in from the start here and would be important pieces in the attacking gameplay from Derby throughout the match. They would both start the match with Mount spending the majority of his time playing as the ‘8’ on the left of the central midfielders and Wilson playing as the wide attacker on the right.
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