VINCENT KOMPANY has been tipped as a Manchester City manager of the future – by one of his Burnley stars.
The Belgian took the Clarets back to the Premier League at the first attempt and the second-tier champions face the Treble winners in the new season kick-off on August 11 at Turf Moor.
Vincent Kompany led Burnley to the Championship title in his first season in charge
Kompany was linked with the Tottenham job this summer but is staying at the Premier League newboys
City boss Pep Guardiola reckons it is ‘written in the stars’ that the legendary defender Kompany will get a crack at the Etihad hotseat.
And Burnley full-back Connor Roberts says his team-mates are relieved that the 37-year-old, linked with Tottenham this summer, has stayed put in Lancashire.
But he concedes his boss Kompany is primed to reach the very top in management.
Roberts said: “Vincent will go and have that Man City job one day. I can’t express how good Vincent and his staff are.
“I thought I knew quite a lot about football about how to play and what to do. But this season working with them, now I know a lot more.
“There was relief, he’s a brilliant manager. To know they are going to be there going forward is brilliant because you learn so much from them.”
Roberts says he can see the similarities between Guardiola and Kompany with City’s style having an influence on the way Burnley play.
The Wales defender, 27, has been given the John Stones role by moving into midfield as an inverted full-back.
Roberts added: “They are similar, 100 per cent. I watch Man City and we aren’t them but I see massive similarities in the way we are asked to play. We might not be able to do it as good as they can.
“But you do see similarities. Vincent and his staff are so good at getting their point across about what they expect of you.
“When I watch games now, the messages he portrays come into your head.
“You know what to do in every situation from build up to attack to defending in different parts of the pitch. You know where you should be in every moment of the game.
“At the start of the season I played right centre-back and the manager pulled me in after three or four games. He said the role I was playing was very important.
“I thought, ‘I’ll try my best and if I’m asked to do that and do it very well then I’m going to stay in the team’. I was a scholar at Swansea as a central midfielder so I knew what to expect.
“I have enjoyed the new role massively. The hardest part is when you have players behind you and you’re not used to checking your shoulder or turning into them. I have done fairly well.
“It’s something I never thought I could see myself doing when I was playing right wing for Swansea under Graham Potter.
“I had no interest in being a coach or a manager before but working with Vincent and his staff means I might want to see if I can do it at a later date.
“It helps that we have a lot of the ball. It will be interesting to see if I’m asked to play in the same way in the Premier League next season.”
Burnley’s non-internationals returned to pre-season training on June 5 – even before City had finished their campaign.
Roberts, who played for Wales in their embarrassing 4-2 home Euro 2024 qualifying loss to Armenia on Friday, said: “The manager didn’t want the boys to have eight weeks off since we finished.
“There is only a handful of first team players there.
They put in the work and hopefully that will help us next season going into it with everybody ready and ticked over with not too long a time off. Then it could only affect us positively.”
