Press news in...

🎙️NCFC head coach Philippe Clement will hold his pre-Watford press conference at 13:30pm this afternoon.
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We start with Jack Stacey. Not a long-term injury, "but too early to put him in for the game". "We hope to recover him next week, but he'll miss this game," says Clement.

PC confirms that Anis Ben Slimane will be on the bench tomorrow. "I expect two or three others to train on Sunday. People are coming back, but you cannot throw them straight into the games. We need to be careful with Lucien Mahovo."

Clement: "The staff have seen that there is a good vibe with the players. They're getting better mentally, tactically, technically. Watford is a different test - they have a good way of playing with the ball and they've worked together much longer than we have."

On buy-in from players: "I cannot compare to before. Everyone starts with a white page, but I have nothing bad to say about anybody's desire to become better every day."

Asked about Declan Rudd's appointment as GK coach, Clement says "the decision of Tony [Roberts] was made before I came, so I knew before that he was going to leave and had another option. We have been looking for solutions and talked to Tony, who has been helping with everything. He talked really highly of Declan and we spoke to him. He knows the club and goalkeepers also, so it's a logical step."

Does Clement see any further changes to his staff? "We're still assessing, together with the owners and Ben [Knapper]. It's not only about changes now - it can be in six months or one year. It will be a constant evaluation."

On meeting Attanasio in the flesh for the first time: "It was very good and confirmation of what I felt in the first meeting. We talked about a lot of things; the club, infrastructure, the players, the games. They're very motivated and we're very aligned."

PC: "There are a lot of things that we can do together, not just me but everybody. It's important not to start to tremble when you don't get the results that you want but to keep going. With the support of the owners, I'm really sure that this will happen."

"It's crucial in modern football," says the City boss of his trust in the owners. "There are so many people from outside who live to be critical about everything. It's easy to have critics, but you need to have a clear plan. All the clubs who have been successful over 20,30 years, had a clear vision and worked with a manager and a board together when it got tough. They didn't say 'okay, we change again and start a new story all over again."

Asked about Pelle Mattsson, Clement says: "You need to have the belief before the performance. You cannot get belief out of the performance because you will not perform without the belief. He had the belief. I spoke to him about what I saw at his previous club and he hadn't shown here yet. He wasn't showing his quality on the ball, but that will become better and better with more games."

On McLean/Mattsson partnership: "I don't want only partnerships. We also have Jacob Wright, who can play in that position, so it's not like I build a partnership and Jacob is out of the story. We need different players to come in and go out."

On Watford and fixtures coming up: "We have some big tests in the next few months, so it will be interesting for me to see how the players deal with these tests. The players should be fighting every minute. They need to get this experience in the next couple of months to grow as a team. All the teams I played for or managed that were at their best, they were all at least one and a half years together. You come through those experiences together."

On fans: "It's all credit to them. Even in Birmingham they were there, all of them, 2000. Now again they will be there, so we have to give something back to the fans. That's my aim, together with the players. There is synergy back."

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And that's all from Clement this afternoon. Onto Watford...



Posted By: DrDublin on December 5th 2025 at 13:47:38

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