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# Clement won

- **Source:** 
- **Published:** 8 Sept
- **Club:** Norwich City
- **Original URL:** https://www.edp24.co.uk/sport/26532407.norwich-boss-clement-vast-array-selection-criteria/?ref=rss

City host unbeaten Birmingham City on Wednesday night on the back of an excellent 3-1 win away to Sheffield United on Saturday.

But, with the backdrop of an improving fitness record and the on-going integration of new players, there are no guarantees the same starting XI will run out at 7.45pm

“The easiest thing as a manager is to say, ‘okay, I pick for that moment my best starting XI and if they win, I pick them in the next game again. And if we win, I take them in the next game again,” said the City head coach.

“But then you're going to have a lot of injuries during the season also.”

Clement is no tinker-man – his selections are based on fact, not hunches.

“That's why we brought in (performance director) Dr Paul Ford to organise better inside of the club all the objective data that we can find about what's the effect of games, what's the effect of trainings towards the players,” he said.

“That's why we work also with the biomarkers to look inside their blood, what's been going on, we check their heart rates every day in training and during the games also to see what's internally going on with them.

“We look also in their past, what they've been doing. We check every day how much distance that they did in training, their high intensity runs, their sprints, their acceleration, their decelerations and those things you need to build also with the players.

“It's different with a player who did it a lot of times, like Kenny (McLean) for example. His body is used to doing those things.

“With a group of young players, it's never the case. I had it myself also when I had my first season with European football. It was a totally different world. Before you had one game a week, you had time to recover a lot of time, and you had time to train. And then suddenly you come in this rhythm of every three days and in the beginning my body was not ready for that. So, you need time to adapt your body towards that, towards that load, to that rhythm.”

Clement has no new injuries from the weekend win – but who gets to start and who has to wait their turn on the bench, only Clement will know.