Carlos Corberan has shared the respect he maintains for the job Mark Robins carried out at Coventry City, as he prepares to go head-to-head with his Sky Blues’ successor Frank Lampard when they visit West Bromwich Albion on Wednesday evening (8pm kick off).
Robins’ near eight-year tenure was ended last month after a slow start to the season, despite the club conducting a productive transfer window in the summer. Still, the decision made by club chairman Doug King came as a shock to many, but Lampard – who ended almost 18 months out of the game by taking the job – has got off to an impressive start by collecting four points from fixtures with Cardiff and Millwall.
Corberan came up against Robins plenty during the last three years as boss of initially Huddersfield Town and then, in the last couple of seasons, of Albion. He has admired Robins’ tenure and will forever associate him with City, as he revealed their chat in the summer during which Robins outlined the money being spent by the club.
“I have a lot of respect for Mark Robins because he is a magnificent coach,” Corberan said. “I will always remember his time at Coventry, but the club has gone in a new direction. Frank Lampard has an unbelievable pedigree not only as a player, but as a coach too.
“I was talking to Mark Robins in pre-season and he was telling me they have invested a lot and they are talking about a new training ground. They’ve made a huge investment to progress. They’re not where they wanted to be and that’s the difficulty of the Championship.
“They are similar to West Bromwich Albion when I arrived here. It’s different because the position in the table was different, but similar because they probably don’t have the squad to be in the place that they were. Perhaps that’s why the club has made the decision to change the coach to see if someone can get something more from the team.”
Corberan, who doesn’t see a reason why the current Sky Blues squad assembled cannot be fighting for a place in the Championship’s top six come spring time, remembers crossing swords with Lampard during his previous spell in the second tier, as manager of Derby County. Corberan at the time was Marcelo Bielsa’s number two at Leeds United as the Rams prevailed in the play-off semi-finals at their expense.
The Spaniard was quick to differentiate between Lampard the player and Lampard the manager, pointing to the new City boss’ coaching credentials and the body of work he has already presided over in what has been a relatively short managerial career, including a play-off final outing and over 100 top flight games in charge.
“I remember when he was at Derby County and I was at Leeds United as the assistant,” Corberan reflected. “He eliminated us and he reached the play-off final with Derby County. He had a young and talented team at Derby. He went to the Premier League after that and he had some good moments and some more difficult moments there, like every coach in the world has difficult moments.
“For me, he is a Premier League manager because he has shown his level in the Premier League and he was close to earning promotion to the Premier League. I think it’s a very exciting appointment for Coventry City. Nobody needs to talk about his skills as a player or a coach.
“In their first game under him at home to Cardiff, they put his ideas immediately onto the pitch. For me, that’s the challenge of the Championship. It’s impossible to predict which teams will be in more difficult positions. If you analyse Coventry’s squad, it’s a squad that can definitely be in the play-off positions. A lot of their players were playing in the play-off final against Luton at Wembley.
“After this, they lost [Viktor] Gyokeres and [Gus] Hamer, but, as a club, they have made an unbelievable investment. The money they got from these players, they have gone and signed new players.”
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