'We have total belief': Vincent Kompany has never questioned the desire of his Burnley players

Speaking after Saturday’s crucial win over Brentford, the Belgian said there has never been a lack of belief within the club, despite a frustrating season.

“That’s never been the case. For us we have total belief, full belief. I just want to see, and it’s a bigger picture idea, but I just want to see players always alive. Players being alive.

“The goal we scored, the second one, it’s everything about our season. We actually lose the ball when we shouldn’t lose the ball but then we make a 60 or 70-yard recovery run, recover the ball and opposed to just saying ‘oh okay, we’ve recovered the ball’, we then go and attack the other side. What I mean by that is that it’s not perfect, but the desire is there. You can always achieve something with that.”

The weekend win was 2024’s first. The team doesn’t play again now until Saturday, March 30, when they will travel down to Chelsea looking to record back-to-back victories for the first time this season. Has this international break come at the worst possible time then?

“No, it’s a good time. It’s fine,” said Kompany. “It’s absolutely fine. We’ve got plans anyway for the international break. For us it’s a way to reset ourselves for the final run, so it’s not a bad way to reset.

“You usually use the first week to maybe review the last tranche of games, last eight or 10 games and build towards the next nine. Usually during the international break you will always have an eye on pre-season and all these types of things, so it’s nothing more than normal.

“And then we will build up to Chelsea when we recover our international players.”