sport news FOOTBALL LEAGUE FOCUS: Vincent Kompany has turned Burnley into mentality ... trends now
Are Burnley the best team in Championship history? Let’s revisit that question in May. Is Vincent Kompany doing the best managerial job in modern, second-tier history? Convince me otherwise.
Before fans of Steve Coppell’s Reading pipe up, let’s start with some facts. Kompany is just 36 years old. He inherited a deflated club which had just lost its entire spine, with Nick Pope, Ben Mee and James Tarkowski the headline departures.
After six seasons of top-flight action, some fans had grown tired of negative and defensive tactics. The club needed a gutting rebuild and many doubted whether Kompany, with just one managerial job on his c.v. at Anderlecht, was the man for the job.
Fast forward eight months and here is the state of play. Burnley are on a nine-match winning run, 17 points clear of third-placed Middlesbrough, having lost just once since August. They are averaging 2.24 points per game which, if continued all season, would take them to 103 points.
If that was the case, that would be the third-highest points tally in second-tier history, after Reading in 2006 and Sunderland in 1999. A big ‘if’? Perhaps, but Kompany’s side are making a habit of winning and look unstoppable.
One of the former Manchester City captain’s main mantras in an early-season team talk was to do just that, and to gain the muscle memory to score goals to win matches out of habit.
Vincent Kompany has done a brilliant job since taking charge of Burnley in the summer
‘My passion is scoring goals,’ said Kompany in that passionate speech. ‘I’m a defender… or I used to be. But my passion is having teams who are looking to score goals at every opportunity.
‘I don’t care if it’s a defensive throw-in or corner… we clear it and get up the other end and score. I know the “build-up” is a fetish - everyone wants to be a build-up team. It’s not enough.
‘Just bear with me until we get over that hurdle where we can execute it without thinking about it.’
Kompany told his group of players, many who had just been relegated from the Premier League in a turbulent season, that they were all winners. His young squad’s eyes grew transfixed, and they have followed his lead ever since.
Don’t be fooled by the Kompany you see in interviews, always beaming from cheek to cheek and joking with reporters. His football is modern but his managerial style is somewhat old-school, and his angry voice often beams down corridors after matches.
His father was a mayor, his mother an activist.
