Vincent Kompany is surprising a lot of people – himself included. “My passion is scoring goals,” he told the Burnley squad in his first meeting after becoming their new manager in June 2022.
That might have surprised the likes of Ashley Barnes and Jay Rodriguez, who only had memories of Kompany the player being hellbent on preventing them during their tussles with Manchester City. “My passion is a team who are looking at every opportunity to score,” Kompany went on to say. “It means every phase of the game. We have a plan, we have an idea to score a goal. I don’t care if it’s a throw-in or a corner we’re defending: we clear it, then we try to get up the other end and score.”
Kompany surprised himself with just how quickly that offensive philosophy took hold. His new team, with several fresh additions, went on to seal promotion with a record seven games remaining, going on to win the title by plundering 87 of those cherished goals en route to a dominant 101-point haul.
It certainly surprised the footballing public, too. Jaws dropped with every free-flowing win. Perhaps unfairly, such style was never expected at Turf Moor – for so long an epicentre of pragmatism, a place that the doyen of pretty football, Pep Guardiola, once compared to a visit to the dentist. Soon after Kompany’s arrival, though, Burnley were playing the kind of football that made opposition defences open wide and say ‘Ahhhh’. Or more accurately, ‘Arrghhhh’.
Kompany had joined from Anderlecht, confident in the clarity of how he wanted successful football teams to play. But he was realistic – after all, he was turning the club 180 degrees. New methods;
