Joe Cole believes that Frank Lampard will be delighted with Chelsea's Champions League draw, after avoiding lengthy trips across the continent.
The Blues face some stern challenges against Ajax, Valencia and Lille in the group stages, although the trips to the continent will not involve too many air miles.
They could have had much tougher tests from pot two, while there were much further journeys to make in other teams in pots three and four.
As a result, Cole believes that Chelsea have avoided a potential banana skin and that Lampard will be pleased with the opponents he is set to come up against.
“If you look at the teams it’s difficult but I think what Frank will be happy about is that Amsterdam and Lille is close, it’s not going to be massive travel,” he told BT Sport.
“I don’t think Chelsea’s priority this year is the Champions League, I think it’s get out of the group stage and see what happens.
“I think he’s going to be quite happy. You don’t want to be having five, six, seven hour flights, so I think the games we’ve got he will be reasonably happy with.”
