Why Vincent Kompany should have listened to Tony Montana

Lessons in integrity from a Miami cocaine baron

I watched most of the 2023/24 season with a sense of detachment. Until Christmas, the fixtures never quite aligned with other stuff that was going on so I only managed to see a few matches and was out of the country for most of the remainder of the season with other demands for my attention.

In early November, the comfort and sybaritic hospitality of the Avenell Suite at the Emirates, where season tickets go for £9,995 per person, was reasonable compensation for the 3-1 drubbing I witnessed as the guest of an Arsenal supporter. Burnley did at least acquit themselves well although the result was somewhat inevitable.

A couple of weeks after that was the muddled, toothless home display against West Ham where the opportunity of a scarcely deserved win was thrown away in the dying minutes, courtesy of an own goal and a lame, stoppage time tap-in. That said, the visit to the splendid Prashad, the celebrated North West Indian vegetarian restaurant in Drighlington, near Leeds, with my mother, cousin and Hammers-loving partner made amends for the disappointment of the afternoon.

Only the visit to Craven Cottage two days before Christmas gave any sign of hope. It was the first Premiership match presided over by a female referee and played out with exemplary behaviour from both teams. And Burnley looked like they had finally found some form of collective identity. Sander Berge and Wilson Odobert not only both scored but excelled in a solid ensemble performance. Grounds for optimism then, for 2024.

Shortly after that, I checked out as I went on a four-month, 16,500-mile motorcycle odyssey around the USA. I was tucking into some ‘original’ Buffalo Wings at Duff’s in Buffalo, Upper New York State when the notification flashed up on my phone with the Tottenham result.

So, without wishing to claim wisdom after the event, relegation was not a surprise but what I had always assumed to be part of a five-year plan.

When Kompany was appointed, I completely bought the line that as a player with such a stellar track record, he wanted to achieve the same level of excellence as a manager. To do this at Burnley would mean building a young squad with the modest resources available, and moulding them in his image.

But this would take time. Yo-yoing between Premiership and Championship for two-cycles or more would be required to build the depth of talent and experience necessary for permanent residency in the top tier. This, alongside a strategy of ‘planned replacement’ of key players, the absence of such being the principal undoing of Messrs Dyche and Woan.

The omens of the promotion season were good: scintillating football by a largely unknown side leavened by players such as Barnes and Cork, a legacy of the Dyche era, to provide much-needed continuity. It was refreshing too. The Dyche teams looked as if they could have been plucked from the 1950’s, all smart haircuts and robust tackling, reassuringly like a Burnley team of old. But under Kompany, the influx of overseas players with dazzling skills and creativity was a leitmotif of what the future might look like and the future looked very bright indeed.

Likewise, the change in stewardship from local grandees to steely-eyed financial investors and glitzy sport-stars seemed promising. Sky’s ‘Mission to Burnley’ documentary made a fairly convincing case that financial success and the emotional commitment pledged by the new owners were not mutually exclusive.

But it was also clear during the halcyon days of 2022/23 that they may struggle physically in the Premiership. Up against inferior but bigger, stronger Championship teams such as Luton and Blackpool, they got shoved around too easily and their evident artistry was crushed brutally.

While this did appear to be a contributory factor in the short stay in the Premiership, ultimately though, it looked like a lack of cohesion. This was the predictable consequence of Kompany preferring to field a carefully curated lineup to counter each opposing team and the likely root cause of the speedy demotion.  Unlike Dyche, Kompany never seemed to know who his best team was and shunned such old-school sentiments of “Play well and keep the shirt” that may have frustrated sidelined players but were, at least, effective.

Staying with Kompany, I had thought (hoped) he would face relegation with the same implacable confidence and steady gaze he displays in every press conference, patiently explaining he was going nowhere until he had finished the job he started.

But instead, he just added his name to a long list of the usual suspects across UK public life that glide effortlessly from one failure to the next, enriching themselves in the process. When you see some of these mediocrities interviewed, you can’t really blame them as they probably don’t have any other option. They’re simply trying to stay in the First Class carriage of the Gravy Train for as long as possible until their Second Class, Off-Peak, Restricted Route abilities are exposed.

But not Kompany. Surely, he’s simply too noble, too talented and presumably (after his time at Manchester City) too rich to be driven to such tawdry behaviour? I fully expected to see him gradually turn water into wine at Turf Moor over five years before striding messianically down the M66, the traffic parting all the way to the Etiahad, where he would feast for eternity on fatted calf, serenaded by Noel Gallagher.

But no. Instead, he’s taken the Bayern Munich job, one the whole world believes he was eighth-choice for. He would no doubt have attained such an elevation, in time and on merit, but instead has got it as part of a “Kratzen Sie den Boden des Fasses” exercise by the Bavarians.

When Al Pacino’s Tony Montana is trying to get a toehold as a drug dealer in Miami, all he can  offer his potential partners as surety is his personal - albeit flawed - integrity.

”All I have in this world is my balls and my word and I don't break 'em for no one," he reasons, encapsulating his unwavering determination and loyalty to principle.

Neither was in much evidence throughout this whole sorry affair.