Bayern Munich have agreed a three-year deal with Vincent Kompany to take over as head coach.
A fee of £10.2m will be paid to Burnley to bring the 38-year-old to the Allianz Arena, where he will succeed Thomas Tuchel in the top job. The Bundesliga club failed in their attempts to convince the German to stay after a run to the Champions League semi-finals and were forced to search elsewhere for a replacement.
Kompany, who began his managerial career at Anderlecht, earned a big reputation after joining Burnley two years ago. The former Manchester City defender took the Championship by storm, earning rave reviews after turning a defensive side into a thrilling attacking team, and led Burnley back into the Premier League at the first time of asking.
There were hopes that Burnley could succeed at the highest level by sticking to their progressive style of play but a failure to reinforce his squad led to a 19th-placed finish and relegation. Allowing Kompany to make a swift departure will give Burnley time to find the right replacement as they gear up for another promotion campaign.
There will be raised eyebrows at Kompany earning such a big job. Equally there is a feeling that the 38-year-old’s methods could work well with a side at the top level. Kompany has experience of living in Germany after representing Hamburg during his hugely successful playing career.
Completely out of the loop about his career as a manager (I just knew him as a good Belgian defender a few days back), how has he been doing?
It’s a massive step up. I don’t see him lasting more than two seasons at the most. He did well with Burnley but has absolutely no experience managing a team at the level of Bayern.
His reputation as a player and experience in the Bundesliga will give him some extra credibility at first, but if they start losing games the blame will quickly fall on him due to his youth and inexperience as a manager. It’ll be especially difficult for him to fill the shoes of a manager like Tuchel, who is extremely experienced and tactically renowned.
Get relegated and then manage one of the top teams in the world. I want that kind of trajectory. Lol
Isn’t Bayern in a kind of a weird state at the moment, after their first loss in the Eredivisie for more than a decade?
Bundesliga, but yeah, I know what you’re saying. I wouldn’t call it weird state though. Just an off-season? Lol
Oh yeah, Bundesliga, got distracted.
Indeed, I just learned about it with the fact that Harry Kane still didn’t get a title, and thought it was impressive to break such a long streak
Xabi Alonso put on a masterclass on how to manage a team with Bayer Leverkusen. I personally am of the opinion that Kompany will do very well, but most people seem to (quite strongly) disagree. Kane will get his title soon enough with Vinny at the helm.
I haven’t watched many Burnley games so I’m not sure how his team is set up. I just know they got relegated, which is kind of a strange “reward” to be managing such a big team next.
He did a great job with Burnley getting promoted from the Championship. But then they got immediately relegated from the Premier League, finishing 19th out of 20 (in a season where two of their relegation rivals took points deductions) and looking pretty out of their league most of the season. He’s falling upwards.