Clement On Derby, Ronaldo And Curtis

Clement. who effectively oversaw the win over Crystal Palace in midweek took time out from preparing his new side for the trip to Hull this weekend to answer the questions of the waiting media before stepping out into the Liberty itself for the traditional new manager photoshoot.

Just 48 hours since his appointment as Swansea manager was confirmed, Clement was there to show he had already settled into the role although the backdrop of what had broken the night before about Alan Curtis was very much at the forefront of the minds of the assembled press.

And it was an issue that Clement did not want to dodge “He won’t be on the training field and won’t be on the bench but we want him around and having that communication with players,” he said.

“We respect him and the club respects him for what he’s done here. I really hope he finds a role he’s happy with at Swansea.”

Clement was dismissed from Derby last year with the side 5th in the table before he was reunited with Carlo Ancelotti who he was Number 2 to at Bayern before joining the Swans and on that subject he added “I often get asked about my time at Derby and there’s a lot of contrasting views about what happened, from a harsh dismissal or – an interesting one I read the other day – my time at Derby was ‘an absolute disaster’. The only important thing about that is how I felt and I think about it as a positive experience. I learned a lot.”

He also had a word of warning for the Swans players when he joked about his substitution of Ronaldo “I actually took him off, would you believe that?” he said, smiling.
“In our very last game at Real Madrid, Carlo was serving a two-game suspension. We were playing Getafe and we were going to take off Cristiano in the second half. We’d spoken about it at half-time. I said: ‘Cris, we’re going to take you off in this minute,’ and he said: ‘Who’s coming on for me?’ I actually put on Martin Odegaard and it was his debut for the club. Is that a claim to fame?

“I could say to some of the Swansea players if I take them off and they shake their head: ‘I’ve taken off Cristiano Ronaldo, so I can take you off.’”

The Swans are at Hull tomorrow for a 3rd Round FA Cup tie and whilst there are expected to be changes made by Clement, these are likely to be minimal as he did also talk about consistency within his selections.

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