BURNLEY supporters no doubt love Vincent Kompany.
The very best of company this season, with all the promise of the Premier League to come in 2023-24.
Vincent Kompany chose Burnley ‘for the people’ but might eventually return to Man City for arguably the biggest challenge
Pep Guardiola is almost irreplaceable at the Etihad but if Kompany maintains his progress he will be a serious contender to step in at some stage
Promotion from the Championship was achieved with scarcely a single hiccup. Done and dusted with a record seven matches to go.
There was always something special about the defensive midfield player who was to become a great centre-back with Manchester City and also a mightily accomplished one with Belgium.
The defender stands at 6ft 4in with a head that looks as if it were constructed for a Roman bear-fighter or heavyweight boxer.
Anyone attempting to outmuscle him in the penalty area was always likely to end up on their backside accepting, I think, the inevitable.
For all that he was heck of player and now, not particularly surprising for anyone who knows him well, a heck of a manager too.
One, I suspect, who could one day replace the near-irreplaceable Pep Guardiola at the Etihad.
Even Pep thinks so. He declared that Kompany is ‘destined’ to return and manage the club, saying: “His destiny to be Manchester City boss is written in the stars.”
You never know, of course. His thrilling tenure at Burnley may be a chimera.
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Experience tells us that managers can hit hard times.
Many successful bosses find the pressure in the Premium League overbearing, more than half of the clubs have sacked their manager this season.
The 12 fallen so far in the PL in one season is a record — a mix of expectation and pressure.
Kompany served his management apprenticeship with Anderlecht, joining Burnley in June.
Sean Dyche worked manfully but failed to keep Burnley in the Prem, sacked possibly as much because he was reaching the end of his contract and wouldn’t cost the club much in compensation. And yet Burnley were still relegated.
Dyche’s legacy, however, was a competitive team and so Kompany, intelligent and approachable, must have been pleased with his dressing room inheritance.
Even so, to take them up in less than a season could be considered high even on the Lewis Hamilton graph of speed and technique.
The true test will be whether Kompany will avoid relegation as Dyche did season after season.
As the Belgian knows only too well, Burnley will find life difficult back in the best league in the world. There was a time when the cotton towns were the red roses of Lancashire.
No longer. Burnley’s accession comes with the collapse of the once-famous football towns of Bolton and Nat Lofthouse, the Preston of Sir Tom Finney, the Blackburn of Alan Shearer and, beside the seaside, the Sir Stanley Matthews of Blackpool.
Turf Moor has a capacity of around 21,000, so buying a season ticket next time around will now be like trying to secure a place at the Coronation.
I fancy Kompany is loving it there. His team waltzed it to win the league and although they may well never add the Prem title — although that was said of Leicester City a few years back — under Kompany they have a manager whose organised and well-coached side will surely scare the elite.
My guess is that he will already have had offers from bigger clubs but will be wary of a hasty move.
When quizzed about reported interest in him from Spurs, he said: “I chose Burnley for people and I feel I made the right decision.
“It’s an enviable place to work, trust me, especially when we keep talking about managers getting sacked left, right and centre.”
I’d like to toast his success and that of the club, although definitely not with a Bene ’n’ Hot, the local Benedictine tipple in Burnley.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.sportingexcitement.com/football/premier-league/liverpool-pulling-out-of-bellingham-transfer-race-came-out-of-the-blue-real-madrid-will-be-rubbing-hands-with-glee/
