- Clement’s surprise appointment sparked dramatic mid-season turnaround for City.
- The Belgian rescued Norwich from relegation danger to secure a top-ten finish.
- Dynamic leadership and squad management have restored faith at Carrow Road.
After the fallout from the Liam Manning era, the pressure was on for the Norwich City board to make the right appointment. Their choice was Philippe Clement.
Honesty
I have to be honest – if you gave me a sheet of paper and asked me to write 10, 20, possibly even 50 managers that could have potentially been Norwich City appointments, I would not have thought of Clement.
Just to be clear- If you would have said his name and I’d go “cool” but there would be the feeling of “would he want to be our manager?”
There is also the fact that he is very different from previous managers – we’ve either gone for younger, unproven or upcoming names such as Alex Neil, Paul Lambert or Daniel Farke.
Alternatively, we have tried more stalwart types like Chris Hughton, Dean Smith or David Wagner with varying degrees of success.
Turnaround
What Clement has achieved in a small space of time has been nothing short of incredible. Yes, we failed to beat Ipswich on their way to promotion, and we couldn’t quite make the play-offs.
But it can never be forgotten that there was a point where we were eight points in the relegation zone. Ninth may seem like nothing to someone from the outside but it represented an enormous upturn in form.
Visibility
I could physically see the change when I was at Carrow Road this season. The flow of football was more dynamic, the energy didn’t drop and there seemed to be more determination to get results.
His handling of the Josh Sargent saga was also a clear message – the team would be handled on Clement’s terms, and nobody else’s. That being said, he was also someone who would recognise team effort, even in a defeat.
His marshalling of resources with 14 injuries showed that he would do all he could to keep the team fresh and make sure players genuinely did feel they were part of the match as opposed to being brought on for the first choice eleven.
Future
What happens next will be crucial. The board deserve credit for bringing in Clement when he was most needed.
In the past Norwich City have not backed managers, even when those managers have given us promotions or gone on to show why they deserved that backing with other managerial jobs.
Is it a risk? Maybe.
But if anyone has deserved our trust, it is Philippe Clement.
