Reading head coach Paul Clement has said on Twitter that Darren Bent was overweight and lazy following claims from the striker that he was destined to be a failure at Derby.
In the opening game of the Sky Bet Championship, Clement faced his former team Derby and it would be a heartbreaking affair for him. Despite taking the lead through Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, the Rams were able to fight back and equalised through Mason Mount before winning the game in the last minute through a Tom Lawrence goal.
With Clement facing his former team, one of his former players Bent decided that this was the ideal time to make a comment on him and his spell as manager of Derby. The former England international said that he was always going to be a failure at the club and that he didn’t like confrontation. The comments were reported on Twitter by The Sun journalist Jordan Davies.
Savage from Darren Bent on Paul Clement: "It was inevitable he was going to crumble (at Derby). Training had changed and his philosophy from pre-season had gone out the window because we weren’t getting the right results. And ultimately he didn’t really like confrontation." #EFL
— Jordan Davies (@jordandaviesj) August 3, 2018
But even though Clement had just been involved in managing a game, he decided not to take this criticism lying down and fired back using his personal Twitter account. He said that he believed that Bent may have been bitter because he didn’t play that much under him and also hinted that the reason he did not select him was because he was fat and overweight.
https://twitter.com/PaulClement1972/status/1025683724237787136
This Twitter row hints at a tension that was taking place at Derby while Clement was in charge and perhaps tells us why his reign at the Rams didn’t last that long.
