Valencia boss Albert Celades will have been busy preparing his squad for their encounter with Chelsea this week, but it appears his own research isn’t quite up to scratch.
The Blues make the trip to Spain for the crunch clash tomorrow night as they sit level on seven points with both Ajax and Valencia at the top of Group H.
SEE MORE: Revealed: Barcelona make Chelsea star a TOP transfer target in major squad revamp
Currently, the Premier League giants are in second spot, but ultimately the outcome of their next game could be decisive in terms of who qualifies to advance to the knockout stage of the Champions League.
In turn, both managers and their staff will have done their homework on the opposition to ensure that they are as best prepared as possible, but it seems Celades isn’t quite up to speed with Lampard’s past or instead got his English cities mixed up.
“He was a great player and then he did a very good job at Coventry,” he is quoted as saying by the Sun in his press conference.
It’s likely that it was simply a slip of the tongue and confusion on the part of Celades, but Valencia fans will certainly be hoping that they haven’t been looking back on previous games involving Coventry instead of Derby County.
That said, he’ll undoubtedly have analysed plenty of coverage of Chelsea from this season so it’s likely to be irrelevant having already played them as well, but it’s not often you hear managers at the top level make such mistakes when it comes to discussing their rivals and opposition managers.
To his credit though, Celades went on to prove that he has indeed been keeping a close on Lampard and Chelsea this season.
“Chelsea is a big team, with big players and a big coach. Tomorrow will be a difficult game,” he added. “Chelsea have very good players, not two or three, a lot of good players.
“They play with big intensity and I think at the moment they are one of the best in Europe.
“They are playing very well. Watching the game against Manchester City you can understand the things they can do… we need to be at our best to beat Chelsea.”
Time will tell who comes out on top on Wednesday, but it promises to be a tense night for all concerned.