How Vincent Kompany transformed Burnley Football Club
The Sean Dyche era was something that couldn’t be replaced easily, seeing a promotion and a brief appearance in Europe after a 7th placed finish in 2017. However, after relegation from the Premier League last season, the only option Burnley had was to create a new legacy with someone else, and begin a project which would last them several years, and bring Burnley back to its former glories of a few years back.
In then came Vincent Kompany, a former Premier League winner with Manchester City, and beginning his coaching career with Anderlecht in 2019, being a player coach up until 2020, and head coach until summer of 2022. The name comes with massive calibre and magnitude, as an established top flight defender with many trophies and accolades to his name, however not much coaching experience which possibly Burnley need to become the side they once were. Kompany leaves Anderlecht with 43 wins from 95 games, with around a 45% win return per game, which doesn’t really back up his case a lot more to take over a leading Championship side, but nevertheless, they’ve made it work fantastically well. At the time of writing, the Clarets sit 11 points clear at the top of arguably the most competitive league in England, and sit 15 points away from the play offs. It’s remarkable to even think about the work that Kompany has done so far in his short tenure at Burnley, and something which hasn’t been achieved since Leeds United’s title winning season during lockdown.
Kompany is a heavy possession based coach, particularly due to the many years he spent under the watchful eye of Pep Guardiola at Manchester City for several years. This is a very major transition from what Burnley played only last season with Sean Dyche at the helm, which created a short period of time in which Burnley learnt an adapted Guardiola playstyle. Not just current squad members but a shortlist of many new ones also adapted to this, helping to return positive results by as early as the end of October. The parachute payments from the Premier League have of course helped in a sense, but it’s how quickly Burnley players have settled with the system and began to dominate the Championship, instead of the influx of money spent to improve the squad.
Kompany is all about looking wide to the wingers, and doing that as quickly as possible is something that is drilled into the Burnley system. They’re very patient in possession, and similar to Dorking Wanderers who I covered in an earlier article, are very focused on playing across the back line. When a press isn’t oncoming, they can look easily into the midfield in front of the defence, whether that be in a 4–3–3 or a 4–2–3–1, after several patient passes across the back four. Sometimes this becomes a three as Ian Maatsen is frequently pushed on, however he usually drops deeper to provide a further option for Burnley, especially on the wings, an important aspect for Vincent. If the press is oncoming, which is very often as teams in the Championship do commonly press, then the game becomes all about the wide men. This brings him as mentioned before, but also Welsh international Conor Roberts into the game, as they’re very good attacking threats when coming forward, so add a different dynamic to attacking as a whole. The left side is commonly higher compared to the right side, but both have the ability to become wing-backs when called on, making opposition teams incredibly stretched out and disorganized. This utilizes Maatsen frequently, who looks for balls early into the box or for the opportunity to cut inside instead to find an option, if this isn’t pulled off then his agility and pace is able to force defenders into unwanted clearances and forcing the game long for the opposition after being aware of the threat their wide men can produce.
Here’s Ian Maatsen popping up with Burnley’s first goal under Kompany as an example:
Because of this further forward lying of both wing backs, it obviously creates a sense of a back three at times, which creates massive gaps in transition if Burnley are caught unawares, something which frequently happened at the early part of the season. However, this has been ironed out since, and due to the aggression and fitness of the Clarets’ squad, these sorts of gaps are shut down incredibly quickly.
The midfield pivot at Burnley is usually rotated across the game, and the role isn’t usually stuck to just one player, but rather switches between two. This allows freedom for one of the midfielders, in particular Josh Brownhill to play further forward which has paid off across this season, with the 27 year old contributing to 12 goal involvements across 32 games so far this season. Obviously plenty of Championship football experience has helped with this across several different roles, having 5 seasons in the second flight of English football already under his belt before this season. This adds another element to their midfield package, with both experience and creativity which is crucial in any Championship side.
It’s obvious Burnley lack in some form a quick, strong and greedy striker as Ashley Barnes, Jay Rodriguez & recently new signing Michael Obafemi have been sharing the number nine role across the season. However, the creativity from up front doesn’t come predominantly from them as expected. Instead, the major threat comes from the wingers, for example Southampton loanee Nathan Tella. The right winger comes with pace, high technical quality and brilliant finishing, as showcased here:
This however doesn’t reflect the threats Burnley have anyways, as they’ve registered 18 different goal scorers this season, reinforcing the fact that just one threat isn’t enough to win a game of football. Compared to clubs like Norwich, who have two forward threats in Josh Sargent and Teemu Pukki, however have been their only major output of goals, with minimal coming from elsewhere on the pitch.
Vincent Kompany is a name which holds a lot in football, however when arriving in England it came with little to nothing in terms of coaching. He had a point to prove as soon as he came to England, and so far has absolutely proved that he can become a world class manager. With the resources at his feet and a Burnley team destined to return to the Premier League, only time will tell for the 36 year old with the run in to the final game of the season in May.
Written by: WFCHenry
Twitter: @WFCHenry
More articles at wfchenry.medium.com
