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Coventry City boss Frank Lampard has won his second successive Championship manager of the month award.

The Sky Blues boss oversaw maximum points with five successive wins in November with his side currently five points clear at the top of the table.

Lampard said: “We got some fantastic results throughout November and I would like to thank all the players, staff and everyone involved for their continued hard work.

“We have a great togetherness and team spirit here and we’re all looking forward to the busy Christmas period and continuing our hard work.”

Once again Coventry have cause for a double celebration with striker Ellis Simms being named the player of the month, following hot on the heels of team-mate Brandon Thomas-Asante claiming the award in October.

The 24-year-old scored five goals in his three starts in November including a brace in each of the victories over Middlesbrough and Charlton, taking his tally to eight in all competitions so far this season.

“This was only possible because of my team-mates and the staff pushing standards every day,” said Simms.

“Individual awards come from team performances, and the results we’ve had make this extra special.

“I’ll take the confidence from it and keep giving everything for the club and the fans.”

It’s an image in the mind’s eye that’s hard to shift.

Stephen Robinson studying Wilfried Nancy’s Celtic as the hours tick by to Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup final. Forensic analysis in every waking hour. And for the St Mirren manager, suddenly, hope.

A little over a week ago, as Martin O’Neill, the great redeemer, exited the club in a fanfare of gratitude and optimism, Robinson would have to face a team content in its own skin again.

What he must see now is something altogether different.

He’s got to be seeing weakness and a chance. Everybody else can see it.

Nancy had two ways to go when he took over – he could have done a steering job with O’Neill’s team until the January transfer window, when he could start putting his own imprint on things.

On the back of losing to Heart of Midlothian on Sunday in his first game in charge, Nancy’s side have lost a second game, a 3-0 doing by Roma at a fast-emptying and, at the end, booing Celtic Park.

It’s not so much that they lost to Roma – O’Neill, Brendan Rodgers and Ange Postecoglou could all have lost to the Italians just as easily – but it’s the confusion that exists under Nancy now that’s intriguing, the speed with which O’Neill’s work has seemingly unravelled.

The fact that Nancy is now the first Celtic manager in history to lose his first two games. The reality that Thursday was only the second time in history that Celtic conceded three first-half goals at home in Europe.

The uneasy truth that Liam Scales’ own goal was the earliest concession in a European game at Celtic in more than a decade.

These are not the kind of records that Nancy came here to set. The brutal realities of life as a Celtic manager have descended on his head in double-quick time.

The crumbs of comfort wouldn’t feed a sparrow right now. They amount to Celtic not having caved in and conceded more goals in the second half against Roma. Nancy did his best to feast on that in the aftermath.

Has psychological damage been done this past week? You could argue that it has. Do Celtic look confused on the pitch? Yes, again. Will Nancy go back to basics on Sunday? Unlikely. Are Celtic fans more worried now about the League Cup final than they were a little over a week ago? In the case of some or many, undoubtedly.

Nancy was subjected to an awful lot of garbage in the wake of losing at home to Hearts, as if his tactics board was an affront to football, as if his perfectly normal trainers made him any less capable of doing his job.

The one truth about managing Celtic, or any other team with high demands, is that, if you are a winning manager, you can turn up in a tutu. Nobody would care. If anything, it would spark a trend – if you’re winning.

Now that he’s off to a losing start, the doubt is out there, the feeling that maybe Celtic should have stuck with O’Neill for a while longer or that, perhaps, it was a bit reckless to give control of the team to a manager with little experience and no exposure to the kind of suffocating heat of a Glasgow giant.

Again, it’s not just the losses that might be making some Celtic fans gulp. It’s the rapid reimagining of O’Neill’s team and the disintegration of the organisation that had been created.

We can make too much of what O’Neill achieved – his side weren’t always easy on the eye in his brief second spell – but they won all bar one game. They toiled badly at times, but they got the job done, they triumphed on the road in Europe, which is something Celtic rarely do.

Nancy has gone to three at the back, and with three left-footers, which is something that Derek McInnes gorged on at Celtic Park. He has tried to reinvent a left winger, Yang Hyun-Jun, into a right wing-back – and it hasn’t worked. He’s tried to recast Sebastian Tounekti, a left winger, into a left wing-back. That hasn’t worked either.

His players look confused in a system that doesn’t agree with them. It’s only two games and it’s a tiny sample size. In a normal world. Glasgow is not a normal world.

Judgement Day can come in the space of 45 minutes in this place. In the case of Russell Martin, the former Rangers head coach, it came before a whistle was blown in a competitive match for a section of the support. Things are different in this city.

Nancy had precious little time on the training ground with his players, but he still made gung-ho changes against Hearts when a steadier approach might have been wise.

Maybe if John Kennedy was still in the coaching team then he might have been persuaded to go more gently and more slowly, but Kennedy, a near-30-year veteran of the club as player and assistant coach, left when Rodgers went. Some clever counsel may have left with him.

The concern for Celtic folk is that Nancy gives the impression of a man wedded to a system of playing rather than adapting his system based on what he has in the dressing room. Square pegs don’t tend to fit into round holes, no matter how hard you try to hammer them in.

Nancy needs new blood, but he doesn’t need to perform the major surgery that Postecoglou needed to perform. He doesn’t need to rip it up and start again as the Australian had to do.

Nancy deserves time, deserves a January window, deserves some new players of his own choosing. You only get those things in the future if you win in the here and now. That was something that Martin, at Rangers, claimed he knew, but did he really? His medium to long-term “no gain without pain” mantra suggested otherwise.

It’s a case study that Nancy, even this early, could do with looking at. It’s unlikely that he will switch back to a more pragmatic O’Neillesque formation on Sunday, when St Mirren will attempt to make it a battle and expose the uncertainty in the Celtic team.

This might all come right. If Callum McGregor lifts the trophy at Hampden then everything becomes easier – for a day or two. It would give Nancy a lift, it would give him credibility and a chance to bond with supporters. He needs that trophy, big-time.

When Arsenal host Wolves this Saturday it will be a meeting between the club sitting top of the Premier League and one rooted to the foot of the table.

It will also pit the English top flight’s second most potent attacking side against the worst defence.

And with second-placed Manchester City visiting a Crystal Palace side that go into the weekend occupying a top-four spot – and having lost once at home this season – could it be time to switch the captaincy away from Erling Haaland to Bukayo Saka?

The England forward has watched his value rise to £10.2m after some consistent performances, and the Gunners’ remaining December fixtures may present some opportunities for Saka, with a trip to Everton followed by home matches against Brighton and Aston Villa.

Meanwhile, Haaland has scored once in his last four league outings and his one shot in the box against Leeds and Sunderland were his worst displays since City’s opening home defeat to Tottenham in gameweek two.

So we are asking: Is Saka a genuine alternative to Haaland perma-captain this weekend?

Unsurprisingly, Haaland is the most selected player in FPL, appearing in 73% of teams.

But across gameweeks 12, 13 and 15 he mustered just six points due to a drop off in big chances. But given he is less likely to be rotated by Pep Guardiola, would it be a risk to remove him?

@ Let’s Talk FPL Andy said: “I’m almost certainly in the camp for Saka. Watching Wolves against Manchester United cemented the deal.

“They were so bad, and Arsenal are so much better than United, there could easily be four, five or six goals there. He has to be number one choice with that fixture. For me it is Saka or nobody.”

There’s momentum quickly gathering among serious FPL managers to captain Saka as the league leaders face bottom side Wolves at the Emirates.

It’s the best fixture on the calendar this season from an attacking perspective: Wolves are without a clean sheet this season, conceding a league-high 33 goals, including four at home to Manchester United last time out.

Saka has delivered an attacking return in three consecutive league games, and his underlying numbers are equally compelling, with 12 shots and three big chances.

We know he has vast routes to points, given his set-piece responsibility, including penalties, plus he’s never far away from the defensive contribution bonus points.

Saka was rested against Brentford, scoring from the bench, which bodes well for his minutes in this game. It’s a key game for the Gunners following defeat at Aston Villa last time out, with Manchester City reducing the gap at the top to just two points.

However, Haaland remains a very solid captaincy option and will likely be the most-backed player once again this week. It’s dangerous to go against him, because if he does deliver, you’ll likely be faced with red arrows.

A trip to Crystal Palace appears tough on paper, but Haaland has scored on all three visits to Selhurst Park, with Manchester City scoring a leading 15 goals in the last four gameweeks alone. Haaland has blanked in three of those last four games, with his one goal and two assists from this spell coming in the 5-4 win away at Fulham.

His underlying numbers remain high, with 11 shots in the box and five big chances on goal.