You can’t throw the tea cups around any more
Paul Clement has coached some of the world’s greats and he’s learned the lessons of modern management...
Paul Clement is remembering the day a cardboard box was sent crashing into the side of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s head in a dressing room at evianles-Bains in eastern France. ‘It was like slow motion,’ he says. ‘It flew through the air and hit him. and Zlatan just brushed it off.’
the episode dates from the Swansea City manager’s time as assistant to Carlo ancelotti at Paris Saint- Germain, where the box was the only kickable object within the Italian’s reach after a dismal first-half performance on a cold night and terrible pitch against evian.
It was uncharacteristic of ancelotti to reprise the incident involving Sir alex Ferguson, David Beckham and a flying boot but that’s Clement’s point. anger only has an impact in football management when used sparingly.
Clement occasionally exploded, too, during his time with ancelotti. there was an episode at Chelsea involving Jose Bosingwa, who was disgruntled to be with the second string during one practice session. Clement challenged him, the full back gave a fair bit back and the situation escalated to a level where ancelotti and Didier Drogba had to jump between the pair. ‘You have to be ready to deal with it when people cross the line,’ says the 45-year-old.
But it was Clement’s capacity to improve players by actually hearing them out and viewingg the player/coach relationship as a meritocracy, which made him an essential part of ancelotti’s management team at t Stamford Bridge, PSG and Reall madrid and another six monthss at Bayern munich.
ThIS goes some way to explaining Clement’s summer coup — hiss telephone call to Bayern’s chief executive, Karl-heinz Rummenigge, which h sealed Renato Sanches’s arrival on the banks of the River tawe on loan, 14 months after his £31.5m move to munich from Benfica.
‘Players think and analyse far more now,’ Clement reflects. ‘the days of throwing tea cups and whatever came to hand around the dressing room have to be gone. I remember a manager a long time ago and every half-time it would be the same — shouting, shouting, shouting. I asked a player after, ‘‘What did he say?’’ he just shook his head.’
the authors of the books in his office where we meet — college basketball coaching gurus John Wooden and Dean Smith, San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh, nBa star and coach Phil Jackson — point to a curiosity about how winners have worked. though theorising adds up to precisely nothing, of course, if you make the wrong decisions. Some of the decisions Clement has made do gnaw away at him — even now, just three league games in, when the line-up immaculately written in blue marker pen on the huge office whiteboard suggests no indecision, with no crossings-out. changeagainsthis decision, manchestershape for and united example, personnelin theto second league game, when his team were trailing 1-0 with 23 minutes to play. ‘two personnel changes and change to the shape and it was goal, goal, goal and we lost 4-0,’ he says. ‘I had a big hand in that. If I hadn’t made those decisions it could have been 1-0 until 85 minutes, then we could have created a chance. Big learning experience for me, especially playing a big team. If I had my time again there I would think differently about it.’
the backdrop to the manchester united decision was Swansea’s 3-1 defeat by tottenham hotspur last april, having gone ahead early. ‘Spurs got it back to 1-1 and I’m waiting to put another defender on but I leave it and then it was goal, goal,’ he says. ‘there’s an example of hesitation. that’s the difference between being a manager and assistant. Decisions from morning until night . . . ’ they’re easier to make when your club are not in a state of civil war. the club’s american owners Jason levien and Steve Kaplan have made their peace with the club’s Supporters trust, while Sanches, new £ 11m Spaniard Roque mesa and £12m Wilfried Bony are more conducive to the old Swansea playing style Clement says he wants to bring back. But the value that Clement saw in a mug with leon Britton’s image printed on the side has had an equally restorative effect. Britton,
the much-loved 34-year- old who first arrived at the club in 2003, dropped out of the side under managers Francesco Guidolin and Bob Bradley and has been restored
by Clement. a ‘Keep Calm and
play Britton’ mug was sent in by a
fan, and a photograph of Clement clutching it went viral and now the mug takes a prominent position on his desk. ‘I keep my paracetamol in it,’ he jokes, tipping them on to the table. he knows from his difficult first arrival in management at Derby how necessary those can be. the side were fifth when owner mel morris dismissed him eight months in, after seven league games without a win. morris has been through five managers since. ‘the fit between the previous club and me wasn’t right for some reason,’ Clement says, avoiding the name. ‘I was looking to work in a certain way that didn’t work in their opinion. But the fit here is much better . . . in the way that I and the club think football should be played.’
his rescue of Swansea last season — making them only the fourth Premier league side to survive from a Christmas position bottom of the Premier league — means his world has turned. But few are better qualified than he to discuss how fragile and fleeting the grip on success in professional sport can be. Clement’s father, the former QPR player Dave Clement, was dead at the age of 34, having taken his own life when the enormity of his career’s end proved too much. he does not want to make too much of this and asks, the day after we speak, that it might not feature too substantially. But the memories of hearing of his dad’s death remain as clear as day.
‘my mum and grandfather broke the news to me and it was strange because you are 10 years old and it’s difficult to comprehend it,’ he says. ‘Perhaps it would have been harder had I been older, because you understand it more. Being so young it was tough at the start but it became normal very quickly.’
He has recently been reading the story of martin ling — the former leyton Orient and Cambridge manager who has struggled with mental health problems.
‘It was so sad to hear of martin’s struggles and I can relate to that,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen that struggle around my own family and with my own experience of losing a job. I was lucky. I lost my job (at Derby) in February and started the following pre- season at Bayern (with ancelotti). But you see this hole. You doubt yourself. You think, “am I going to get another opportunity?” ’
Swansea’s players can’t say they’re not impressed by Clement delivering Sanches. ‘ Some of us may have thought, ‘‘Is it really going to go through?’’,’ defender alfie mawson said this week. ‘Fair play to the manager, the chairman and the owners for getting that one over the line.’
But that Ibrahimovic cardboardbox moment tells Clement that the biggest challenge is deciding whether — when winter has set in and the test is proving brutal — it is time to throw things around for once in a while. ‘there are times when some players do want that bit of anger,’ he reflects. ‘ Zlatan liked it when the box hit him. he respected that. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the look on his face but yes, he loved that . . . ’