Swansea boss Paul Clement using Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and PSG know-how for Premier League battle - 'you can't throw cups of tea anymore'

  • Paul Clement partnered Carlo Ancelotti at some of Europe's biggest clubs
  • Now at Swansea, he is using that experience to battle in the Premier League 
  • He has brought in Renato Sanches and Wilfried Bony to bolster their squad 

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 Evian-les-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 only kickable object within the Italian’s reach after a dismal first half performance on a cold night and terrible pitch near the Swiss border. 

It was uncharacteristic of Ancelotti to reprise the incident involving Sir Alex Ferguson, David Beckham and a flying boot but that’s the point of Clement’s story. Anger only has an impact in football management when used sparingly. 


Swansea boss Paul Clement worked alongside Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Paris Saint-Germain 

Swansea boss Paul Clement worked alongside Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Paris Saint-Germain 

Clement took charge at Swansea in January

Clement took charge at Swansea in January

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 eleven-a-side 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 in 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 viewing the player/coach relationship as a meritocracy, which made him an essential part of Ancelotti’s management team for six years, at Stamford Bridge, PSG and Real Madrid and another six months at Bayern Munich. 

‘He was a thinker for us, with an appetite for new ideas and concepts and applying them. He brought knowledge,’ says Mike Forde, Chelsea’s former director of football operations. ‘Ancelotti saw him as someone like his younger self.’

This goes some way to explaining Clement’s summer coup – his telephone call to Bayern chief executive Karl Heinz Rummenigge which sealed Renato Sanches’ arrival on the banks of the River Tawe on loan, 14 months after his £31.5m move to Munich from Benfica. 

Clement worked alongside Carlo Ancelotti at PSG, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Chelsea

Clement worked alongside Carlo Ancelotti at PSG, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Chelsea

Clement and Jose Bosingwa  fell out so badly at Chelsea they were held apart by Ancelotti 

Clement and Jose Bosingwa fell out so badly at Chelsea they were held apart by Ancelotti 

 

‘Bayern would not have been short of contacts,’ says Forde. ‘But with any precocious talent, you want to put it in the right environment.’

‘Players think and analyse far more now,’ Clement reflects. ‘There’s an intellectual element. For me 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 remember asking a player afterwards: ‘What did he say?’ He just shook his head.’

The authors of the pile of books at the back of his office where we meet – NBA management guru John Wooden, legendary San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh, basketball’s Phil Jackson and Dean Smith – point to a curiosity about how winners have worked. Though theorising adds up to precisely nothing, of course, if you make the wrong decisions. 

As Jamie Carragher said of another practitioner of quiet management, Bob Paisley: ‘You look at this quiet man and how he’s done it. He made big decisions. And it’s OK making big decisions for as long as you keep getting them right.’

Some of the decisions Clement has made do gnaw away at him – even now, just three games in, when the starting line-up immaculately written in blue marker pen on the huge office whiteboard suggests no indecision, with no crossings-out.

His decision, for example, to change shape and personnel at Old Trafford in the 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. ‘And I had a big hand in that. Because if I hadn’t made those decision it could have been 1-0 until 85 minutes, then we could have got a set-play or created a chance. So, big learning experience for me in that one, especially playing a big team. They’re just waiting for you to do that and if I’d had my time again there, I would think differently about it.’

Swansea signed Renato Sanches on a season-long loan from Bayern Munich on deadline day

Swansea signed Renato Sanches on a season-long loan from Bayern Munich on deadline day

Sanches played an important role for Portugal when they won Euro 2016 last year

Sanches played an important role for Portugal when they won Euro 2016 last year

‘Never have regrets,’ Ancelotti always told him. ‘A decision is always the right one in the moment when you make it.’ But the backdrop to the Manchester United decision was Swansea’s 3-1 home defeat to 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, with a candour unusual in managers. ‘There’s an example of hesitation. And another time I’ve gone for it. The decision-making. That’s the difference between being a manager and an assistant. Decisions all day long. Decisions from morning until night…’

They’re easier to make when your club is not in a state of civil war. The club’s American owners Jason Levein 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 here in 2003 and has been through the leagues with Swansea, 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 an anonymous fan, a photograph of Clement clutching it virtually went viral and now the object in question takes a prominent position on his desk. ‘‘I keep my Paracetamol in it,’ he jokes, tipping them onto the table. 

A tactical switch by Clement against Manchester United contributed to Swansea losing 4-0

A tactical switch by Clement against Manchester United contributed to Swansea losing 4-0

Clement admitted that he learned a lot from that encounter with Jose Mourinho's men 

Clement admitted that he learned a lot from that encounter with Jose Mourinho's men 

He knows from his difficult first arrival into management at Derby how necessary those can be. The side were fifth when owner Mel Morris, dismissed him, seven months in, after seven league games without a win. The side stood fifth, only five points off the top. Morris has been through five managers since. 

‘The fit between the previous club and me wasn’t right for some reason,’ Clement says, fastidiously avoiding the name. ‘I was looking to work in a certain way that didn’t work in their opinion for them. But the fit here is much better… in the way 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 father’s death remain as clear as day.

‘My mum and grandfather broke the news to me and it was strange in a way because you are ten 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.’ 

Clement poses with Frank Lampard during his spell as Real Madrid assistant manager

Clement poses with Frank Lampard during his spell as Real Madrid assistant manager

Clement has a word with Cristiano Ronaldo during a Real Madrid training session in 2014

Clement has a word with Cristiano Ronaldo during a Real Madrid training session in 2014

He has recently been reading the story of Martin Ling - the one–time Leyton Orient and Cambridge United manager who has struggled with mental health problems – in Michael Calvin’s book ‘Living on the Volcano, which charts the challenges of British football management.

‘It was so sad to hear of Martin’s struggles and I can relate a lot 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 [with Ancelotti] at Bayern in July. But you see this big hole. You doubt yourself. You’re think: ‘Am I going to get another opportunity?’

Swansea’s players can’t say they’re not impressed by Clement delivering up Sanches. 

His first spell as a manager, at Derby, had left him doubting if he'd get another opportunity

His first spell as a manager, at Derby, had left him doubting if he'd get another opportunity

Clement has brought Wilfired Bony back to Swansea in a £12m deal from Manchester City

Clement has brought Wilfired Bony back to Swansea in a £12m deal from Manchester City

Swansea's Alfie Mawson spoke of how impressed he was at the Sanches deal going through

Swansea's Alfie Mawson spoke of how impressed he was at the Sanches deal going through

‘Some of us may have thought 'is it really going to go through? Is it nonsense?'’ 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 cardboard box 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...’ 

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