Philippe Clément always closer to Monaco
Philippe Clement should not end the season on the bench in Bruges. He is preparing to leave Club Brugge to become the coach of AS Monaco, where he should replace the Croatian. Niko Kovac, thus living his first experience abroad.
The Belgian is about to sign a two-and-a-half-year contract with AS Monaco, according to AFP, which quotes Friday night “sources with knowledge of the case“.
Clement, who signed an indefinite contract last June with the Blauws in Zwart, arrived in Bruges in 2019 after being Belgian champion with Genk. He won two new Belgian league titles with the Gazelles. This season, Club Brugge is second in the championship, before the break was 7 points behind the leader, Union Saint-Gilloise. The Bruges residents also did not spend the European winter, finishing 4th in their group in the Champions League behind Manchester City, PSG and Leipzig.
Philppe Clement spent ten years at Club Brugge as a player, from 1999 to 2009. It was also in Bruges that the former Red Devil (38 caps) had his early coaching career, as an assistant coach, in 2011. T1 interim following the dismissal of Georges leekens in 2012, Philippe Clement left Bruges in 2017 to become head coach at Waasland-Beveren. He left Waasland in December 2017 and signed an indefinite contract in Genk, which he left two years later to sign his return to the Venice of the North.
In Monaco, Clement is called upon to replace the Croatian Niko Kovac, who arrived in the summer of 2020 but who suffered from the poor results of ASM, 6th in the French championship and eliminated in the preliminary round of the Champions League . Drafted in the Europa League, Monaco is qualified for the round of 16. The name of Clément circulated on the Rock as soon as we learned of Kovac’s departure.