Norwich City boss Philippe Clement (Image: PA)
Norwich City boss Philippe Clement (Image: PA)
Philippe Clement admits he will have to manage his Norwich City squad wisely ahead of Sunday’s clash with Wanderers.
Norwich head to the Etihad Stadium this evening to take on Manchester City in the Carabao Cup third round.
Then, the Canaries have a quick turnaround to hosting the Whites at Carrow Road in the Championship on Sunday.
“The squad is looking good,” Clement told our sister paper, The PinkUn. “Of course, with this programme of Thursday evening and Sunday 1.30 kick-off time, I need to take that in mind because you have a little more than 60 hours between the two games so it is a really short turnaround.
“If it was Wednesday-Sunday, it’s a different situation but now we need to work really well to that.
“How to divide power between the two games because I expect the (City) game where you will lose a lot of energy without the ball with all the quality on the other side. And we have a big game on Sunday in the league so we need to make smart decisions.”
The games have been coming thick and fast in recent weeks ahead of the extended international break.
“It has been really busy,” Clement added. “I looked at the Liverpool Tottenham game in the Carabao Cup, Liverpool made 10 changes and Tottenham made nine from the weekend.
“They haven’t played as many games in the league as us, so it has been a really tight schedule until now.
“I don’t ever want to complain about that because I don’t want my players to complain. We need to manage that and it is why we tried to build a squad that can cope with that.
“It is not only here, the schedule, it is also the international window and we have some internationals going for four games so there will be two or three weeks out of the building.
“It is difficult to judge how many games they will play there but probably a lot because most of them are starting players for their national teams. I need to take all these things into account by making decisions to help the players.
“It is impossible for players to play every single game or every 90 minutes, those days are gone. With the schedule and how it has changed in the last five to 10 years – and for sure, the last five games with this international window – there is no other choice than to make rotations. We talked about it before the season, we knew how the schedule would be.”
Norwich have taken nine points from their opening seven league games and currently sit 14th in the table.
The Canaries lost a seven-goal thriller at Middlesbrough last weekend and ex-Wanderer Amario Cozier-Duberry was on target for the hosts.