Paul Clement On Reading Securing Championship Safety

The Royals ended the season with a positive performance against promoted Cardiff City with a 0-0 draw to secure Championship safety. Paul Clement and the players did exactly what they set out to do - get a point to secure another season in the Championship, and they didn’t need to rely on other results elsewhere.

Congratulations to Clement on doing exactly what he set out to do: keep us safe. After the match, he reflected on the game and some important results on the way. He told the official club website:

“It’s a big result. I thought from the first half performance, and the way we battled and fought, we showed that we were up for business today.

“We wanted to get the result and not to rely on anyone else. And now we can look at ourselves and say that we didn’t rely on anyone else. We got the job done in the end... ourselves.

“And we can be relieved and really look forward to being at this level next season.

“There was good adaption shown by the players to work on the early setback of Tiago Ilori’s injury - overall defensively we looked really good.

“We didn’t create much offensively, but we got the result we needed here so we’re happy.

“The Preston and QPR results were full of fighting spirit - we showed that same spirit again today. We need to make that the foundation of our play next season.

“We have a pre-season ahead of us now to get the team fit and well-prepared, and we want to establish an offensive style that everyone can relate to, and that will give us a good chance of winning games.

“I’ts important after a long season - 46 games plus the cups - that players get that rest. It’s a very physical league, and a very demanding league.

“So they have got off-season programmes to make sure they come back in decent shape, and then we can have a strong pre-season.”

Congratulations to Cardiff City who secured their return to the Premier League - Clement added:

“It’s a great achievement by Cardiff, considering where they were last season. The job that Neil Warnock and his staff have done here is absolutely amazing.

“That’s eight promotion teams he has been involved in now. He’s the expert in England in getting it done. They’ll have another big party tonight, and rightly so!

“We’re watching all the celebrations and I want a taste of that too. So now we can look forward to next season.”