Kompany to Bayern Munich ‘astonishing’: He spent £100m and made Burnley worse!

Robin Bairner

• 25 May 2024 13:45 BST
• 4 min read

Bayern Munich are set to appoint Burnley manager Vincent Kompany as their new head coach, but the decision has been greeted cooly by critics.

Kompany, 38, had a difficult spell with Anderlecht before moving to Burnley in 2022. Although he led the Clarets back to the Premier League, they were uncompetitive when back in the top-flight, winning only five matches and ultimately tumbling to relegation by eight points.

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Nevertheless, after being snubbed by several other options, Bayern have turned to the Belgian to revive their fortunes after they failed to win the Bundesliga title in news first revealed by the Transfers Podcast presented by FootballTransfers.

On the pod, esteemed journalist Jonathan Northcroft raised doubts over Bayern’s decision to appoint Kompany in a conversation with Duncan Castles.

READ MORE: Vincent Kompany eyes Man City star as first Bayern Munich transfer

“It astonishes me, if I'm being honest. I mean, he also spent a hundred million pounds in the summer to make Burnley worse, arguably,” Northcroft commented.

“Look, I don't want to dismiss Vincent Kompany as a coaching prospect. I think he showed in his first phase at Burnley that there is a real prospect there. And, and he got them playing Pep Guardiola-style football. He added value to a lot of young players. He created a really good team.

“But what we saw this year was a guy that still got a lot to learn, and he didn't adjust his playing style.

“It's not so much that the playing philosophy was wrong, it's that he didn't adjust the fact that the players weren't good enough to actually play it. They got caught again and again making the same mistakes. Bad build-up structure, bad individual errors, just poor technical errors passing the ball out.

“In that situation, you've either got to coach the players to do better, and coach the team to do better; do different things while retaining the same philosophy.

“Or you do what Thomas Frank did at Brentford, which was to understand that his squad wasn't good enough to play the style of football he played in the Championship when he went up and change the style.”

Even Guardiola forced to compromise

Northcroft pointed out that even Guardiola has had to make allowances, but stressed that there remains top potential in Kompany.

“Pep Guardiola has adjusted to the Premier League quite significantly while retaining his core principles.

“Vincent Kompany's growth as a manager depends on being able to learn these things. And I would say to pitch him into a job like by and now would be an incredible leap.

“Bayern Munich have gone from being the best run, best planned club in, in world football to flailing around really in the manner that we’ve seen from a past incarnation of Manchester United or a past Chelsea.”

Kompany is set to sign a three-year deal with Bayern and will take over from Thomas Tuchel in the summer.