Carlos Corberán believes the Baggies are taking on a side on Wednesday night who find themselves in a false position based on the quality they have in their ranks.
Coventry City are the latest visitors to The Hawthorns, with the Sky Blues sat inside the bottom half of the division.
Former Derby County, Everton and Chelsea boss Frank Lampard was appointed head coach in late November, replacing Mark Robins who had held the position for more than seven years.
Lampard has helped Wednesday’s guests pick up four points from his opening two fixtures and they’ll head across the West Midlands on the hunt for a second consecutive triumph following their 1-0 success at Millwall on Saturday.
Corberán says he has a lot of respect for both Robins and Lampard and insists the team his players are coming up against in midweek are capable of climbing the Sky Bet Championship table.
Carlos said: “It’s not the same because they were not in the same position, but probably, Coventry 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 are.
“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.
“I have a lot of respect for Mark Robins because he is a magnificent coach. 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 remember when he was at Derby County and I was at Leeds United as the assistant. 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 Gyokeres and 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.
“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.
“We know what type of test we are facing on Wednesday. We showed a good level on Sunday, though, and we are completely focused on achieving a positive result. We understand the frustration around not picking up wins, but we are working extremely hard to correct the things we need to improve on.”
