Vincent Kompany delighted as Burnley follow ‘ideal script’ to beat Coventry

Posted Sunday, October 09, 2022 by PA

Vincent Kompany praised Burnley for seeing out their 1-0 win over Coventry as they moved within two points of the automatic promotion places in the Sky Bet Championship.

Nathan Tella’s first half strike earned the Clarets just a second win in six games.

After dropping 10 points from winning positions this season and drawing 1-1 on six occasions, Kompany was pleased that his side recorded their first clean sheet since August.

“It was the ideal script,” said the former Premier League winner.

“I’m not saying that’s what I wanted before the game. I would have preferred again to have put the game behind us and we weren’t capable of doing it today.

“But then given what happened midweek (conceding a late equaliser to Stoke), it was the ideal script, the last 10 minutes you have to battle it out.

“That is what the Championship does for you. You don’t get any time to dwell. You’ve got to take the learning, learn from your pains, put it behind you and move on.

“I spoke a lot about the habit of leading and it is a good thing rather than being in the habit of chasing games.”

Southampton loanee Tella’s fifth goal of the season, latching onto a forward pass from Josh Cullen before slotting past keeper Ben Wilson, secured Burnley’s fifth win of the campaign and lifted them to fourth in the table.

Kompany said: “At times you’ve got to stretch the line, make runs, disrupt the line and part of it is those runs and Nathan has been successful with them a few times already this season.

“He keeps doing that and he gives us something else as well. The impressive one is the variety of goals he is scoring.

“I’m used to square balls and tap-ins but that goal is a difficult one, how he brings it down and puts it into the opposite (side) of the net when it is bouncing, not many strikers would have scored that goal.”

Coventry manager Mark Robins was disappointed with the goal that ultimately cost the Sky Blues the chance of moving off the bottom of the table.

After three straight clean sheets and four matches unbeaten, Robins said: “It’s one ball over the top, we can’t get done like that.

“We make mistakes, every team makes mistakes but if you make a mistake it doesn’t cost everybody a goal – but when we make a mistake it seems to cost us a goal or a big chance.

“They’re a good side, they were exactly what we expected but our performance was actually pretty good.

“They pin teams in and put a lot of players in your back line. They’ve got loads of pace, if you counter against them they’ve got pace to run back, they’re a really good side. But to concede the goal we did against them was really disappointing from our perspective.

“We’ve been okay and limited them to not a lot, we’ve hit the underside of the crossbar for the second time in two games and it hasn’t gone over the line.”

Robins made four changes on the hour mark in an attempt to get his side back in the match after Jonathan Panzo hit the bar at the end of the first half.

“It’s just disappointing that we couldn’t get a goal back,” he said. “When we made the changes the crowd got up again, we went (into) a different gear and we were on the front foot a lot more.”