Vincent Kompany says that criticism of the work he did during his time as the manager of Anderlecht “bothers” him.
The former Manchester City player left the English side to return to his boyhood club in 2019, initially as a player-manager. After a year, he retired from playing to focus exclusively on his managerial duties.
In both of the two seasons that followed, he guided the team to 3rd in the regular campaign before they fell short of title glory in the championship play-off.
In that time, he focused largely on developing young players, and it frustrates him when critics don’t acknowledge that work.
“I don’t mind if someone doesn’t know what I’ve achieved as a player, but it bothers me when someone doesn’t know what work we’ve done at Anderlecht in the past three years,” he told Het Nieuwsblad.
“We believed in young footballers there. We supported them on bad days and pushed them extra on days when things were going well.“
He has now left Anderlecht to take charge of English Championship side Burnley, and he intends to implement a similar philosophy there.
“That’s what we’re going to do here. Give those guys time and then those talents will end up giving you more than you could ever afford for them,” he added.
Given that, he won’t see it as the end of the world if his side fail to get promoted back to the Premier League immediately.
“We don’t focus everything on promotion,” he said.
“If it succeeds this season, that is good for the club and we will go to the Premier League. If it doesn’t work, then maybe next year or another year later. We will certainly compete.”
GBeNeFN
