Frank Lampard made four changes to his Coventry City side against Sunderland and was rewarded with a 3-1 victory

Coventry City boss Frank Lampard says Victor Torp’s performances in training compelled him to hand the midfielder the first Premier League start of his career.

The Dane played a key part in the Sky Blues’ morale-boosting 3-1 victory over Sunderland this afternoon, creating a solid base from which Lampard’s side secured a third win in five games.

Torp and Caleb Yirenkyi turned in solid displays with skipper Matt Grimes dropping to the bench for the first time in his Coventry City career.

That was one of four changes to the side which lost limply to Fulham last Saturday, including Taiwo Awoniyi up front and Yann Gboho on the left wing and Lampard explained his thinking.

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“There's two things. There's my opinion of players to select, when I'm thinking about the squad and how we have to use the squad, and sometimes to bring in freshness is a good thing,” he said.

“The issue for us is sometimes some of our players have not played in the Premier League, they're desperate to but they're learning as they go and this is the highest level, and some players that come into the club need to adapt a little bit.

“Sometimes you feel ‘OK now they're more ready’ and you want to get them into the team. After last week I felt it was the right time to do that.

“And also players that train at a level that says ‘put me in the team’ and when I think of that, I'm talking predominantly about Victor Torp because he's been training at such a level, with a great professionalism about him, that's a real example. I'm very, very happy for him today because I thought he played great.”

Indeed Lampard pleased pretty much everything at the CBS Arena.

“I'm very happy I think the performance was good, the energy was good, the quality,” he continued.

“I think we had good variation in our game it showed, I think, in the goals we scored in terms of we could play and play well from the back and we also could be direct and effective in our game, which is us at our best. Similar to how Sunderland play in a sense.

“The energy we brought and the positive feeling in the performance rubbed off on the stadium allowed us to get ourselves in front in the game.

“Of course they get the penalty and score, but even then I think we continue to see out the game in a very professional manner. So I’m very happy with everything.”