- Clement says Championship schedule for upcoming Easter games is ‘weird’
- Belgian believes the schedule will only trouble players currently injured
- Clement has held talks with the international coaches of players called up
Philippe Clement has critiqued the decision-making of the Championship fixture-setters, with all teams having to play on Good Friday and Easter Monday immediately after the current international break.
Tunisia’s Anis Ben Slimane and Canada’s Ali Ahmed will have to fly to North America to play in the early hours of next Wednesday morning (UK time) before having to return to Norwich for their Friday afternoon game with Portsmouth.
Speaking after his side’s 1-0 win away at Charlton Athletic, Clement questioned the reasoning behind the schedule, believing it will only increase the risk to players currently already suffering with injuries.
“We have a lot of players going. It’s weird for me that after international duty where everybody goes away, that you have already a game on the Friday. That has never happened before in other countries, not only on Friday, but also on Monday.
“That’s a big challenge, to be honest. If you have players playing Tuesday and Wednesday on another continent that is far, far away, then you need to get them back, and probably they will not even be here on time to train on Thursday,” he said.
“Mo (Toure) is now injured, but normally he would have had to fly to Australia to play two friendlies there and to come back. That’s 24 hours away to come back. It’s impossible to play on Friday then, if you play on Wednesday morning at 1am or something, with the time difference. I think this league needs to think about those things also.”
Limited scope for Norwich rotation
Clement also revealed that he has held talks with the coaches of his players respective international sides, in order to help manage the workload for his players ahead of the Easter games.
“I’ve been talking with all the managers,” he said. “We try to explain that, and we try to do that with all the national teams, because a lot of the guys are also preparing for a World Cup. But to go to a World Cup, you need to be fit.
“If they play two games and then need to play on Friday again, and you see with our squad that we don’t have much space for rotation, then you have a much bigger risk that the player gets injured. Then everybody loses, the club but also the national team.
“There were good conversations with several coaches around that. I’m not going to go into detail, because for me it’s also important to have discreet talks with everybody.”
