A midweek trip to Devon always had the makings of a tricky trip for a Coventry team focused on Premier League survival. Such feelings quickly evaporated when Frank Lampard’s side raced into a two-goal lead with just four minutes and six seconds on the clock, Taiwo Awoniyi opening his account for his new club before Jack Rudoni doubled Coventry’s advantage. But, ultimately, Coventry were made to toil before chalking up a welcome first victory of the season.
But Plymouth have form for a cup upset and another was brewing when Xavier Amaechi pulled Tom Cleverley’s side level nine minutes into the second half. Coventry, to their credit, roused once more, the substitute Ephron Mason-Clark regaining the lead before Victor Torp sealed progress to the Carabao Cup third round from the penalty spot. “You’ve got to enjoy a win, always,” Lampard said. “A win is a big deal because it’s a nice feeling to take back on the bus for four hours.”
The 2,100 Coventry supporters, many of whom made the 444-mile round trip, cycled through the catalogue of songs after crisp finishes by Awoniyi and Rudoni. Then Lampard obliged when they craved a wave from a manager who led them back to the top flight after 25 years away. But the game did not turn into the non-event most would have envisaged. “It’s very easy to go: ‘Why don’t you just go 2-0 up and then beat Plymouth 5-0, 6-0?’” Lampard said. “I’ve played in these games many times with different teams and they can become awkward, especially when the flow of the game goes against you: the crowd turns, emotions catch up and all of a sudden the game feels very different. I thought we dealt OK with that, in the end.”
Plymouth were suddenly liberated at 2-0 down. The Danish centre-back Mathias Ross sent a header wide from a free-kick and a couple of minutes later Oliver Irow read Harvey White’s flighted pass and the Tottenham loanee, 24 hours after signing, drove inside Joel Latibeaudiere and drilled past the Coventry goalkeeper Dan Bentley, another debutant. From there, aside from Awoniyi heading wide unmarked, Coventry had to withstand Plymouth pressure. After fumbling White’s shot from distance, Bentley diverted Will Evans’s rebound on to his left post.
Cleverley knew the value of recording an upset, Lampard the damage of defeat. It must have crossed his mind when Amaechi levelled on 54 minutes. Ameachi swarmed Liam Kitching and pinched the ball after the Coventry defender got in a tangle and fired in. Plymouth introduced the homegrown academy graduates Tegan Finn and Caleb Roberts, joining the 18-year-old full-back Joe Mwaro, this his full debut, on the pitch. “I couldn’t be happier with the reaction and the quality we showed to make sure it was still a competitive game,” Cleverley said.
Mason-Clark arrived for his first appearance of the season after a hamstring issue and added the fifth goal of an entertaining game. It was a galling goal from a Plymouth perspective. Tatsuhiro Sakamoto’s cross from the right caused problems, Mason-Clark at first failing to divert the ball goalwards. But Torp was alert to the ball dropping at the back post and squared to provide Mason-Clark the simplest of finishes, the forward poking in from inside the six-yard box.
Lampard made a triple sub, Sidiki Cherif replacing Awoniyi for his debut, while Josh Eccles and Brandon Thomas-Asante also entered. Joe Edwards, the Plymouth midfielder, arrived from the bench but his first notable action was to inadvertently swipe at Thomas-Asante in the box when trying to clear the leftovers of a Coventry corner, giving the referee, Elliott Swallow, no choice but to award a penalty. Torp capped the scoring, thrashing the spot-kick into the top corner.
For Cleverley, this also represented a touchline duel with a friend and a former England teammate and he had spoken on the eve of the game of wanting English coaches like Lampard and Michael Carrick, another former teammate, to succeed. “If you do well in it, you’re great for a moment, if you don’t do so well, then you’re not,” Lampard said after. “If you have the English tag, I do think we’ve got a bit of a bracket of saying: ‘There’s another one [struggling].’ Hopefully we’re not idiots and we can show that over a period of time and do our jobs well.”
