Philippe Clement: "Counter goals were completely avoidable"

Philippe Clement saw his team go down in the league for the first time in 2021. Club swallowed two unfortunate goals against before halftime and could not make up for it after the break.

"We are very disappointed," Clement said. "You know what kind of match you will get against Antwerp, but we shot twice in our own foot. Moreover, they were two goals that were completely avoidable. You know they come here to put up a solid block with a lot of power and duels. Still, we got into many promising situations, but we lacked sharpness in the sixteen yards. It was all just not there. Then you lose points that didn't need to be lost. If you look at the quality of the game, we were certainly not the lesser, but it was to Antwerp's credit that we immediately picked up every crumb we dropped. Besides, every scenario is different. You also have to respect who is facing you. It's a team with a lot of quality that bought in to go for the title. As a result, they also have a lot of substitution possibilities."

Despite the defeat, the Bruges coach took to protecting his players. "At times I expect more from my players, but there are a number of excuses. The match scenario that was against us for example, and also the Covid story, which meant that not everyone was top yet. But we will work very hard in the coming weeks and months to get back to that level of the beginning of February. Whether Club Brugge doesn't like to play this kind of physical match? I wouldn't dare say so. The cup game against Antwerp was also a physical game and we won 3-1. This team can handle physical matches, just think of the match against Zenit. But it's clear that the whole team will have to stay sharp, because we won't get any presents."

Club still had to fill the closing stages with its ten after Noa Lang picked up his second yellow. "I don't blame Noa for anything. He had no intention of playing the man, so it certainly wasn't a stupid reaction. I did go out on the pitch to avoid any stupid reactions, because I felt there was electricity in the air. I just wanted to continue playing as quickly as possible." (SF)