Hello again - we finally have a manager! But there’s a lot of work to do this summer.
Vincent Kompany’s initial interviews are very positive. We already knew he is a very smart guy, who communicates well, but he clearly has a vision for the club.
His inbox is stacked, though, with these just some of the issues he needs to address:
Work out who is staying
Burnley have already lost a lot of players, with confirmation of Ben Mee’s departure a particular blow. Mee follows James Tarkowski out of the door, leaving a huge hole in our defence, while Aaron Lennon, Phil Bardsley and Erik Pieters have all departed too.
The future of Jack Cork remains unknown. There is speculation Kompany wants to sign Josh Cullen from Anderlecht, an Ireland international who sits in front of the defence. On paper that would be Cork’s role, but with Ashley Westwood out with a long-term injury I hope there is a chance we retain one of our most reliable players. I’d like to see Matej Vydra stay too, though like Westwood he is out long-term.
Wout Weghorst has made it clear he doesn’t intend to play in the Championship. Good riddance. Hopefully we get a decent fee for him rather than it being a loan deal as has been reported by some outlets as the suggestion the big useless lump may be willing to come back next year if we are promoted is just absolutely ridiculous.
The market for Nick Pope seems small, with Newcastle United one of the few clubs being linked. We are in a strange spot with Pope. Clearly, from a purely footballing point of view it would be good news if he stayed, though he would likely have to improve his distribution to adapt to the style of play Kompany intends to develop.
Financially, I assume we probably need to sell Pope, while he might want to move in the hope it boosts his England chances. Wayne Hennessey should be a capable no1 in the Championship with Bailey Peacock-Farrell fine as back-up, so we have cover. It’s a tricky one. I can see him staying, which raises the question who we can sell instead.
Maxwel Cornet’s release clause should make his departure fairly straightforward, but I hope we hold on to Dwight McNeil. If we can field a right flank of McNeil with Connor Roberts that should be far too good for most teams in the Championship. A year rebuilding his confidence in the second tier could be just what McNeil needs. There has been some chatter about interest in Roberts, but I think he will stay.
The other player I think there is likely to be serious interest in is Nathan Collins. Suggestions he, like Cornet, has a release clause in his contract are a little concerning. One report over the weekend had both Wolves and Leicester keen on signing him.
Collins is a player we should be looking to build the team around and, in my view, he is the outstanding candidate to replace Mee as club captain. The incredible goal he scored for Ireland in the Nations League showed his quality on the ball, but he is still a bit raw and, like McNeil, he would benefit from a year playing out of the spotlight.
If Collins does have a release clause it might be out of our hands. However, if he doesn’t, then we should try to resist any offers unless the money gets really silly. From a business perspective, a good profit on a lad signed for £12 million last year would make sense, but Collins will probably be worth Ben White money in a couple of years. Why sell for, say, £25m now when he could be valued at twice that before too long?
It’s clear from Kompany’s interviews he knows the budget is going to be small. Naturally, sales will boost what he gets to spend, but we need any outgoings to be sorted as soon as possible to give clarity over the players we still have available.
What we don’t want is players coming back for pre-season who know they want to leave, potentially disrupting the rest of the group VK has to work with, and shortening the brief amount of time we have to sign the replacements needed.
Sign some players!
Even before Weghorst, Cornet, Pope and maybe McNeil and Collins also go, we need new faces. A lot of new faces! The size of the rebuild is going to be massive for VK.
There are 24 players under contract, including those we all expect to be sold - and Westwood. That 24 also includes goalkeepers Will Norris and Sam Waller, who are unlikely to be used this season, as well as JBG who it is fair to say is injury-prone.
A fair chunk of the 24 are youngsters with no first-team experience for us. While Adam Phillips, Bobby Thomas and Jacob Bedeau are among those to have impressed on loan at Football League clubs, it is a very big jump to playing regularly in the Championship for a big team that will be seen as a scalp for lots of other sides.
From those I expect to stay, we could field a team that looks like this: Hennessey; Roberts, Collins, Long, Taylor; McNeil, Brownhill, ???, JBG; Barnes, Rodriguez.
That’s the bones of a solid side, but the hole in central midfield is a problem (if Cork leaves). Cullen sounds good, but if Kompany ever intends to use three in midfield then we are very short in there, even if Phillips is deemed ready for Championship action.
I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of Phillips but he has a pretty good goalscoring record for a midfielder, scoring at a rate of one in five games, and that’s something we have lacked for a long time (Brownhill was supposed to be a goalscoring midfielder - he isn’t).
So midfield has to be a priority, along with new centre-backs. Replacing Mee and Tarkowski is probably the biggest challenge we face in the market this summer. Swansea defender Joel Latibeaudiere - good luck with that name, lads! - is among those to have been linked, along with Manchester City’s Taylor Harwood-Bellis.
Retaining Collins is vital but I think he would benefit from a more experienced defender alongside him, ideally someone with plenty of Championship appearances. If Collins was to go, that would leave us probably needing three new centre-backs in order to have tactical flexibility - it is unclear what system Kompany wants to use.
Kompany has talked a lot about signing young players, but a mix is preferred. Teams that get promoted usually have a strong blend. Look at Nottingham Forest as an example - they had a young side, bolstered with a few good loans, but arguably their key signing was veteran centre-back Steve Cook, who joined on a free as the glue.
We have been linked with ex-Millwall winger Jed Wallace, who is on a free. That sounds like a no-brainer. Wallace has a huge amount of Championship experience and a strong record: he scored six goals and provided 12 assists from 33 league starts last season. Out wide is an area where we need to make at least one good new signing.
Up front, even if Cornet and Weghorst leave, we are in decent shape. Rodriguez scored over 20 goals in his last Championship season and while I don’t expect him to be that prolific again, he and Barnes should both score fairly regularly at a lower level.
Lewis Richardson had an injury-affected season last year but those who have watched the young striker have backed him to be the next to break through from the academy.
Sort out the staff
We waited long enough for Kompany’s arrival to be confirmed, but the club still hasn’t said who will be joining on his staff. There have been reports about Craig Bellamy and Simon Davies, two ex-Wales internationals who were with him at Anderlecht. Davies is an odd one, with reports indicating he was expected to join Spurs… but hasn’t.
Kompany will know who he wants to have on board. But I hope he adds an older head, with a detailed knowledge of the Championship. I’ve seen fans say Bellamy ticks that box… er, he doesn’t. Bellamy hasn’t been around the Championship for a few years.
With Kompany still being a young manager, having the right voices around him is key.
Loans (not the £ kind of loans)
It was interesting to see Kompany talk with some scepticism about loans, with his attitude seemingly closer to Sean Dyche’s in this area than we might have expected.
It was easy to assume Kompany would lean on his City links to borrow a few lads, but perhaps that won’t be part of his plan. Loans are always tricky to get right. There isn’t much point signing players on loan who aren’t yet good enough to play regularly.
We used to do loans well, back in the day. Michael Keane, Kieran Trippier and Mee all signed for Burnley on loan initially. These types of deals, borrowing players from big clubs with a view to buying them down the road, are a good plan. I have no idea if Harwood-Bellis would fit this category. Presumably some of the lads at City will.
At City, one player I’m surprised there hasn’t been a lot of talk about is Liam Delap. Son of long-throw expert Rory, Liam is a 19-year-old England youth international who has been around City’s first team. With the Premier League champions signing both Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez the striker’s chances of breaking through are low. We probably need to sign a forward and he could be a solid option on a loan deal.
How many new players we need depends on who leaves, but Champo teams can now make five substitutes so that has to be taken into account. Dyche preferred to work with a smaller squad, but the extra games in the second tier make that a challenge.
Being able to use up to 16 players in each match means we need a bigger squad, though it also means there will be chances for our youngsters to stake their claim.
I’m broadly positive about the new Kompany era, but the scale of the task is huge. The start of the season is less than six weeks away. Kompany has a lot of work to do.