Football League World
·26 November 2024
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·26 November 2024
This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Former Burnley manager Vincent Kompany is currently performing well at Bayern Munich following his controversial departure from Turf Moor at the end of the previous campaign.
The ex-Manchester City star returned to English football by taking the job at Burnley ahead of their 2022/23 Championship crusade, having built up solid managerial credentials in his homeland with Belgian side Anderlecht.
Kompany's Burnley swept aside the second-tier during his first season in charge, as the Clarets collected more than 100 points, lost just three times, won 29 of their 46 matches and deployed a progressive and dynamic possession-based style which teams in the Championship were simply incapable of going toe-to-toe with.
Their astounding success in the Championship, coupled with an emphatic subsequent summer spending spree which saw Burnley shell out more than £100 million on 15 new signings, meant that expectation was high relative to their status as a newly-promoted side.
However, the side which achieved promotion in the first place was dismantled in the process and many of Kompany's recruits failed to make their mark in a dismal and bitterly disappointing Premier League campaign.
Ultimately, Kompany's side finished the season all the way down in 19th place, resulting in an instant and somewhat unprecedented return to the Championship.
Burnley seldom appeared capable of even staking a claim for top-flight survival under the Belgian's tuition, so it was deemed as a surprise in some quarters when he jumped ship to Bayern Munich shortly after their relegation was confirmed.
Just 10 days after Burnley's final match of the 2023/24 campaign, which they lost 2-1 at home to Nottingham Forest courtesy of a Chris Wood brace - Kompany was confirmed as Bayern's latest head coach, signing a three-year deal.
A reported £10.2 million compensation fee was agreed between the two clubs in order for Kompany to head to Bayern and succeed Thomas Tuchel, who has since become the new England manager.
The merit of Kompany becoming Bayern boss was called into question amid the relegation campaign which he had endured at Turf Moor, although doubters have seemingly been proved wrong following a strong start to life in Bavaria.
Kompany, who showcased his ability to meticulously coach a highly-talented and technical squad in comparison to the rest of the league while at Burnley, is doing exactly the same with Bayern, who now stand a strong chance at reclaiming the Bundesliga title from last season's champions Bayer Leverkusen.
Bayern finished the previous term in 3rd place as they lost out on the title for the first time in 11 years, but they've resumed their dominance and look good value to return to their title-lifting ways.
That's because the German giants already have a six-point cushion over second-placed Frankfurt at the top of the table and remain unbeaten after 11 matches, nine of which have resulted in victory.
Kompany has won 14 of his first 17 games at the helm, with the only two defeats coming in the UEFA Champions League against Aston Villa and Barcelona. At this moment in time, he's got a win percentage of 76.5% and is averaging 2.4 points a game, marking a stark contrast from his struggles not too long ago with Burnley.
Kompany remains a divisive figure with the Burnley faithful to this day, so we decided to ask our Clarets fan pundit, Josh Lucas, if he's surprised at the ex-manager's current success over at Bayern.
"I don't see it as a surprise, we know Bayern are a very good side," Josh told Football League World.
"When you've got Harry Kane up top, you're not exactly going to struggle. There is a good coach in Kompany, even though it looked bad in the Premier League; he was very naive and didn't have a plan B, I think every Burnley fan knew we weren't going to walk into that league and play the football we were playing in the Championship, it wasn't going to work and we were going to get battered.
"That's exactly what happened. We all had high hopes at the start of the season that we were going to finish quite high with the signings we made, but he didn't have a plan B.