If Burnley do go down, as looks likely, it’ll be down to Vincent Kompany’s stubbornness. His refusal to budge from his philosophy, wanting to play out from the back at all costs and so on.
Yet there’s just one fairly significant problem with that view, it’s not accurate.As regular viewers of Burnley this season will attest to, Kompany has adapted. He has changed his style of play.
Has it changed for the better? That’s up for the debate but the numbers tell their own story. But who’s to say how Burnley would have fared had they stuck with the swashbuckling style that saw them romp to the Championship title last season with 101 points. We just don’t know.
The Clarets did begin the season with that approach and the results were disastrous, shipping three to Man City on the opening day, three to Aston Villa, five to Tottenham, four to Chelsea – Kompany’s men were far too open and far too easy to play against.So Kompany took action around the end of October/start of November time. The approach of playing out from the back at all costs wasn’t abandoned entirely, but the Clarets opted to pick and choose their moments instead.
They were still losing, but they did make some progress. First and foremost, they were competitive in games, when earlier on in the campaign the opposition were often out of sight before the game had even reached halfway. It was a platform to build on.
But still to this day, if you tune into a national outlet – whether it be on TV or on the radio – you’d still get the impression Burnley are wanting to play lovely, fluent passing football, when that just isn’t the case.
Case in point, the Match of the Day pundits were quick to point out Burnley’s failings for how Josh Brownhill’s red card against Crystal Palace at the weekend came about. Quite right too, it was terrible.
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