Frank Lampard says he inspired Derby players with odds of Leeds victory ahead of play-off comeback
Written by News on 16/05/2019
Frank Lampard said he motivated his Derby players by showing them the odds of a Leeds victory ahead of their stunning play-off win.
Derby had lost the first leg of the Championship play-off semi-final with Leeds 1-0 at Pride Park, with no team in second-tier history progressing after losing their first leg on home soil.
However, his side wrote their names into the record books with a stunning second-half performance at Elland Road, having gone in at 1-1 on the night at the break before three goals in the final 45 minutes sent them to Wembley.
“We were 1-0 down, I said to the lads everyone had written us off,” he told Sky Sports. “It was 1/8 for them to go through or something, everyone says they’ve beaten us three times, but we made a little tweak, and it worked brilliantly but you need bravery on the ball and the lads showed it.
“There’s work to do, this isn’t the end, we’re underdogs again and we’ll have a tough game against a brilliant Villa team, but we’re there.”
Marcelo Bielsa would not commit his future to Leeds – having lasted a season or less in any of his three previous jobs – after the full-time whistle, and blamed an “unpredictable” second half for his side’s defeat.
“Now is not the time to talk,” he said when asked about his future. “We should have had a bigger lead in the first half, but we ended it with a draw. The second half was unpredictable, it is difficult to analyse.
“We can’t say that in the first half the opponent was dangerous. But in the second half the game wasn’t balanced, and Derby found spaces they hadn’t found before.”
Derby’s ‘spygate’ celebrations
The £170m game
The Sky Bet Championship play-off final between Aston Villa and Derby on May 27 is worth approximately £170m for the winners.
This is a combination of:
- Extra revenue they will earn from playing in the Premier League in 2019/20 – at least an extra £95m, mostly from central distributions
- Parachute payments in 2020/21 and 2021/22 should they be relegated after one season – totalling an estimated £75m across two seasons
(c) Sky News 2019: Frank Lampard says he inspired Derby players with odds of Leeds victory ahead of play-off comeback
