FPL promoted teams: Is Burnley’s Kompany the ‘new Pep’?

Forget what you knew about Burnley ahead of their return to Fantasy Premier League (FPL).

Gone are the days of Sean Dyche, 4-4-2, direct football and settled starting XIs.

Now, under new boss Vincent Kompany, it’s fluid systems, inverted full-backs, a possession-based approach… and a bit of rotation.

We continue our series on the newly-promoted Premier League sides with this profile of the Clarets and their Belgian head coach.

We will assess Kompany’s management style, preferred tactics and openness with the press, as well as looking at areas of his squad he might strengthen in.

To provide a fan’s view, we’ve got insight from ‘statistorian’ Dave Roberts and Adam Dennett from the excellent No Nay Never podcast. Adam has also got a fine recent record in FPL, finishing inside the top 20k in five of the last seven seasons.

More specific articles on the Clarets’ players, separated into attacking options and defensive assets, will follow.

• READ MORE: FPL pre-season 2023/24 guide: Pre-season friendly dates, transfers + more
• READ MORE: The Promoted series: Insight into all three sides coming up from the Championship

WHAT TACTICS DO BURNLEY PLAY UNDER KOMPANY?

Above: Ian Maatsen and Nathan Tella were loanees in 2022/23, while Ashley Barnes left Burnley this summer

On the surface, it all looks fairly routine.

Kompany has persevered all season with a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 (on paper), the more defensive-minded Jack Cork initially joining Josh Cullen and Josh Brownhill in midfield but giving way to a more attacking option – typically Johann Berg Gudmundsson – in the second half of the campaign.

But that doesn’t even begin to tell the full story.

“Burnley would typically line up in a 4-2-3-1 formation, but the fluidity in this is ridiculous. You could see opposition teams bamboozled by some of the player’s positioning throughout the game.

“Against teams that we expected to beat, the formation was more 4-1-4-1 with Vincent Kompany picking Johann Berg Gudmundsson or Scott Twine instead of Jack Cork, or Josh Brownhill would play more advanced.

“When we have the ball, you’d often see Josh Cullen drop back into a three and the full-backs appear in centre midfield. You’d then see the players in central midfield push wide to create overloads and give Anass Zaroury and Manuel Benson to work their magic on the wings.

“After years of watching a pretty rigid 4-4-2, it took a while to get used to!” – Adam Dennett

As you might expect from a man who played under Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta at Manchester City, Kompany is full of ideas and innovations tactically.

And there are no surprises that, like his mentors, he loves an inverted full-back. After years of watching the agricultural Phil Bardsley, it’s quite the sea change for Burnley fans.

Connor Roberts and loanee Ian Maatsen were typically used in the full-back positions, with Maatsen often well advanced down the left flank in the early part of the season (think more Joao Cancelo than John Stones).

But the build-up became more City-esque as 2022/23 went on, with Burnley going with a 2-3-5 or 3-2-5 in possession. Sometimes Maatsen would invert, sometimes Roberts, sometimes both.

Above: Ian Maatsen’s heatmap in 2022/23, via SofaScore

With Cullen staying back, the other two central midfielders – Brownhill and Gudmundsson, for example – were free to join the Burnley front three, like Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan at Manchester City and Martin Odegaard and Granit Xhaka at Arsenal.

WHAT STYLE OF FOOTBALL DOES KOMPANY FAVOUR?

As well as the tactical metamorphosis discussed in the section above, the biggest change under Kompany has been time spent in possession.

Burnley were ranked rock-bottom for possession when being relegated from the Premier League in 2021/22, seeing only 38.7% of the ball.

Last season, the Clarets enjoyed more time on the ball (64.6%) than any other second-tier side.

The drop-down in class is one contributing factor, of course, but it’s worth noting that Burnley’s last promotion-winning side under Dyche also spent much more time out of possession:

“From the beginning, Vincent Kompany set out to play an attacking, possession-based style, with a patient build-up from defence and through the midfield. He likes his full-backs to get forward and link up with the wingers – Benson and Zaroury, in particular, have provided the width from midfield. It is certainly going to be a very different Burnley this time around, compared with our previous spells in the Premier League, with a more positive, attacking mindset.” – Dave Roberts

The “patient build-up” mentioned in the quote above is reflected in the numbers below; this is composed Guardiola-ball and not Conte-style counter-attacking or Dychean direct play.

The obvious point to make now is that there is no way that Burnley see 60%+ of the ball in the Premier League next season, so tactical tweaks will need to be made over the summer. Seeing how meticulous Kompany has been in his pre-match preparation to date and given that he’s already reconvened his squad for pre-season training, you wouldn’t put it past him.

“Even when Burnley were losing, there didn’t seem to be the temptation to start playing it long, although that’s not to say there weren’t occasions when Burnley would try to use a long pass to break down the opposition – primarily from goalkeeper, Aro Muric.

“I expect there will be a continuation of the tactics from last season, broadly speaking. However, I’m sure Vincent Kompany knows that he will need to adapt to find the right balance in a higher division.” – Dave Roberts

We’ll cover clean-sheet potential more in the dedicated defenders’ article but Burnley’s total of 35 goals conceded was the lowest in the Championship last season.

Having lots of possession and an effective, aggressive press helped on this front, too, as they simply didn’t have to do as much defending given their dominance of the ball: the Clarets were actually ranked bottom for blocks and clearances in 2022/23.

DOES KOMPANY LIKE A SETTLED SIDE OR WILL HE ROTATE?

Rotation is the scourge of the Fantasy manager and while Kompany has so far proved to be not quite as bad as Guardiola, he’s prone to making more changes than Dyche.

“Kompany tends to rotate the first-team squad and quite often we’d see 2-3 changes quite regularly. But whoever has come into the side performed admirably, which shows how well he has got his message to the players in such a short space of time.

“Obviously, this isn’t great for FPL, but there was a core of players last season who weren’t affected by this: Jordan Beyer, Josh Cullen, Josh Brownhill and Nathan Tella played the majority of games when fit.

“There are obviously fewer fixtures in the Premier League, too, which should mean less rotation if things are going well.” – Adam Dennett

As Adam mentions above, Cullen and Brownhill weren’t benched at all in 2022/23, while Maatsen was almost nailed and new signing Beyer didn’t feature as a substitute after he established himself as a first-choice centre-half in early October.

HOW DOES KOMPANY HANDLE THE PRESS – AND WILL HE GIVE US HONEST TEAM NEWS?

“Compared with what we have been used to at Burnley in the past (Sean Dyche), Vincent Kompany did seem to be slightly more reticent about revealing if and when players were coming back after injury. I wouldn’t say he was sneaky in this regard, just slightly more cagey, in terms of the amount of information he was prepared to reveal.” – Dave Roberts

We’re seeing fewer and fewer open and honest managers in pre-match press conferences these days, so reliable team news is harder to come by.

Kompany doesn’t seem to be the deliberately deceptive Steve Cooper type but neither is he Marcelo Bielsa; at times, he’s even sounded a bit like Dyche with the “touch and go” responses.

WHERE MIGHT KOMPANY STRENGTHEN IN THE SUMMER AND WHICH PLAYERS ARE IN DANGER OF LOSING THEIR PLACE?

New strikers are likely top of Kompany’s wishlist with the veteran Ashley Barnes departing; despite his advancing years, he was the first choice in attack in the second half of the season.

With attacking midfielder Tella, left-back Maatsen and centre-half Taylor Harwood-Bellis back at their parent clubs, decisions will also have to be taken over whether 2022/23’s loanees make a return to Turf Moor next season or alternative replacements have to be sourced.

“Physicality in centre midfield is the one area that Burnley are missing and we have been strongly linked with Albert Sambi Lokonga from Arsenal, who Kompany has worked with before at Anderlecht. So that looks like the priority along with signing or replacing Ian Maatsen and Nathan Tella.

“I’d also expect us to bring another striker in as Michael Obafemi and Lyle Foster are unproven and very raw, and Jay Rodriguez hasn’t been prolific in the Premier League since his Saints days.

“Another goalkeeper should come in, too, as Bailey Peacock-Farrell has been strongly linked with a loan move and Kompany will want stronger competition for the no. 1 spot.” – Adam Dennett

“Burnley made very good use of the loan market last season, and although central defender, Jordan Beyer, has now been signed permanently, there’s no guarantee that the likes of Nathan Tella, Ian Maatsen or Taylor Harwood-Bellis can be secured for next season.

“With this in mind, our key priority will either be to sign these other players permanently or secure suitable replacements/upgrades.

“Ashley Barnes has joined Norwich City and although we have other attacking options in the form of Jay Rodriguez, Lyle Foster and Michael Obafemi, I feel that another striker is going to be needed.

“Along with Ian Maatsen, Connor Roberts was excellent at full-back in the Championship, but we may see these areas targeted for improvement”. – Dave Roberts

Our thanks again go to Adam and Dave for their valuable insight, more of which will be featured in the next two follow-up articles.

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