CAN CLEMENT’S MEN SHOCK MOURINHO?
IT will be a case of the professor against the student at Old Trafford today as Paul Clement pits hit wit against the man he could not wait to observe from close quarters during his Chelsea days.
Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho may not have too many recollections of working with the Swansea City head coach during their time at Stamford Bridge. Even Clement himself admits the Portuguese likes to keep a certain distance between himself and those he works with.
But Clement has no trouble recalling his own encounters with Mourinho, particularly the times he would stand and watch ‘the Special One’ put the likes of Frank Lampard and John Terry through their paces on the training pitch.
For an ambitious young coach it was manna from heaven. Clement had already been tapping up old friends for any info on Mourinho before rejoining the Blues from Fulham, the chance to see him in action from such a privileged vantage point has put in place key strands of the former Derby manager’s own approach to coaching.
“He was the professor and I was the student,” said Clement as he recalled those few months in 2007 before Mourinho’s first stint at the Chelsea came to an end.
“It was brilliant for me. I was at Fulham and he had gone to Chelsea and I was so interested in what was going on that I was making calls to people at Chelsea and asking, ‘what’s he like?’
“I asked one of my friends who was a coach there to draw me some of the exercises that he was doing.
“But you can’t really see it on paper. It’s not until you actually get to stand on the side of the pitch and see it, that you can see what he is like as a coach.
“I was definitely in awe of him. You were never quite sure where you stood with him, either.
“He created a distance between people. He was very strong on the psychological side, on managing people – both players and staff. “He really kept you on your toes. “But it was all there. How to organise training, how to run training, how to periodise training, how to get maximum use out of every moment, how to get players fit, the technical training, tactical training and not running for the sake of running.
“It’s something I’ve taken forward from that moment really and in 2007 I saw a real high level coach and players training.
“Intense, competitive, organised, maximising use of time, very stimulating for players, first minute to the last minute, activity, activity, physical, mental – it was really impressive.”
Clement will certainly not be in awe of Mourinho come lunchtime today; he cannot afford to be.
But much has happened in the 45-year-old’s career since 2007. He has coached at some of Europe’s biggest clubs, he has won the biggest trophy in club football and now he is striking out on his own path having walked away from Bayern Munich to lead Swansea’s survival fight.
Time is running out. There are just three games remaining come the close of play at Old Trafford.
Not so long ago it looked as though Clement and Swansea had broken the back of the task at hand. Five wins in eight games had them five points clear of danger.
But a run of one point from six games dragged them back into the thick of it, before the relief of last weekend’s timely win over Stoke.
Clement can only look forward, but the perfectionists streak he observes in Mourinho is also present in his own personality; and he admits that winless sequence still eats away at him.
“I’ve definitely got that (perfectionist streak), I am never satisfied,” said Clement.
“I am finding it difficult now to move on from that six-game run. I know that when you are at a club like Swansea, and you’re in the Premier league, you are going to lose or draw your fair share of games. You have to be realistic.
“But when I don’t think we have done well enough in games where we should have done better, it leaves me really angry. I am still angry about that six game run.
“With the exception of Middlesbrough, where I thought we did okay, and Tottenham, where we did well, the other games that straddled those I am really, really still disappointed about. But you have to have that bit of an edge in this job.”