How Vincent Kompany has rebuilt Burnley in the transfer window

Burnley’s six year stay in the Premier League came to an end last season and as the era of Sean Dyche was being left behind, many people envisaged Burnley struggling to bounce back in the Championship.

However, after hiring the ambitious Vincent Kompany and backing him in the transfer market, things are now looking slightly different at Turf Moor. 

We’ve taken a look into their summer recruitment so far and analysed how they could set up next season in the Championship. 

 

Where it went wrong for Burnley 

Last season Burnley had the highest average age of squad in the Premier League with an average of 28.8 years. 

With that came a wealth of experience, but also a squad which was on the decline and hadn’t been properly invested into in previous transfer windows.  

Sean Dyche’s side only won one of their first 25 Premier League matches and they were firmly rooted inside the bottom three for the majority of the season.  

Their biggest problem was scoring goals as they averaged just 0.89 goals per game. 

Maxwel Cornet did add a spark to the Burnley set up following his €15 million move from Lyon in the summer, but he was not enough on his own to stop the rot. 

In a bid to add more goals to their side they signed Wout Weghorst in January to replace the departing Chris Wood, but they ultimately only got two goals out of him. 

Burnley’s attacking structure was clearly a problem throughout the season as they took just 10.68 shots per 90, the fourth lowest in the league as well as averaging an xG of 1.03 per game.  

 

How Vincent Kompany will set Burnley up 

There has been a clear strategy so far from Burnley to invest in young and upcoming players from England and Belgium.  

The average age of Burnley’s signings in this window has been 22.33 years old, which is over six years younger than the average age of the squad they had last season.  

Vincent Kompany is certainly no stranger to working with a young group of players, during his time with Anderlecht they had the youngest squad in the Belgian league with an average age of just over 22. 

Kompany tended to favour a 442 formation with Anderlecht, similar to Sean Dyche, although the playstyle is vastly different to what Burnley fans have come to expect in recent years. 

Kompany’s side averaged 55.8% possession and took 14.8 shots per game. 

His side averaged 547 passes per game which was the most in the Belgian league and a stark contrast to Burnley averaging 324 passes – the fewest in the Premier League.  

 

The recruitment  

Whilst it’s only right to admit that the departures of Nick Pope, James Tarkowski, Ben Mee and Nathan Collins will hurt Burnley, they have done an excellent job with their recruitment so far.  

Perhaps the best bit of business they have done is prizing League One Player of the Year Scott Twine away from MK Dons as several other Championship clubs were interested.  

Twine had 33 goal contributions last season as he averaged 3.3 shots and 2.4 key passes per game.  

Burnley only took on 143 shots from outside the box last season, the third fewest in the league, but this won’t be a problem with Scott Twine in the squad. 

As well as being an excellent set-piece taker, Twine is also deadly from long-range situations as nine of his 20 goals came from outside the box last season.  

Vincent Kompany is already familiar with Josh Cullen who he has brought over from Anderlecht. 

The 26-year-old had a successful loan spell with Charlton in the Championship in 2019/20 and he will add some much needed competition to Burnley’s midfield alongside Samuel Bastien.

With the departures Burnley have had at centre half it was expected that they would dip into the transfer market to strengthen this position and they have wasted no time in doing so.  

Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Luke McNally and CJ Egan-Riley have all come in to add depth into the defensive line.