Vincent Kompany makes Burnley pledge ahead of huge Sheffield United showdown

The Clarets have a huge opportunity to reduce the gap to safety, which currently stands at six points, when they take on the Premier League’s bottom side at Bramall Lane.

While there’s huge pressure on Burnley to pick up a win, Kompany insists his side have nothing to lose.

He said: “It’s been a must-win for a while now. I guess when you get down to the wire though…

“But we’re not the only team in the league with must-win games. It’s a must-win for both teams of course.

“I think this game could be a game of fear or a game of no fear. Our approach, it’s a game of no fear. We go for it.

“We’ve had good performances this season, bad performances this season, but our goal is to take the game how we think it should be approached.”

Burnley ran out 5-0 winners during the first game at Turf Moor in what proved to be Paul Heckingbottom’s final outing.

While the Clarets have only won twice since that game at the start of December, Kompany insists the performances have merited more.

“I just hope we’ve improved again,” he said.

“They’ve had a change of manager of course so there are differences there, but at the same time you talk about must-win but from our side I don’t think we have anything to lose.

“We’ve been written off about 15 games ago, so we’re still there, we’re still fighting. We just have to show the same energy as we have done during the last few games.

“Football is not always about being the better team, it’s the ball landing inside the post rather than outside the post at times and so you have to force your own luck. To do that you have to have a certain amount of belief.

“We should have no fear, attack the game, try our best and hopefully on the day luck will be on our side.

“It’s a different game again. It’s going to have that little bit of a cup final feeling to it and we should embrace that as well.”

Kompany added: “This season the amount of times at the end of games, we’ve sat as a staff and looked at each other and said: ‘how did we not come away with a win or some points?’ That’s been the season for us.

“You can pin it down to some key moments in games, but it’s not like the Sheffield United game wasn’t a turning point for us. We had a lot of positive performances since but the results side of things, that’s what we’re still chasing.

“We can look back as much as we want but it’s about the five games that are in front of us and I will take any next game as a turning point.

“I think for both teams on the day, I don’t see how a draw is good for any team, if I’m being completely objective.

“You can ask Mr Wilder the same question but if it was to be a draw on Saturday, it would be for people in other places to be happy with that result.”