Ahead of tonight's game at Turf Moor, Tony Mowbray has spoken about the opposition manager - a man who he believes can go right to the top...
BRIGHT FUTURE
“I look at Vincent, and I’m pretty sure he’s got an extremely bright future. Forget being a football manager, I think there are certain qualities as a human being that really make you stand out."
KOMPANY/CARRICK
“There are one or two managers in the league at the moment who I feel have a really good intelligence about them, about how to run a football team. Vincent Kompany is one, and Michael Carrick is another. The best coaches have a thirst for knowledge and a way with ideas, and I see that with Kompany and I also see it with Carrick. With the two of them, you get a feeling that they soak things in. They soaked in the history of their playing careers, and they’re bringing it to the Championship as managers at the moment, and undoubtedly, they’ll go on to do it in the Premier League.”
EXCITING
“It’s exciting that these new, young football coaches are coming along. As an experienced coach, I never fear that. We’ve got some really talented young coaches in our office that I love bouncing ideas off."
STUDENT OF THE GAME
“I’m sure he (Kompany) learned a lot as a player on the pitch, listening to one of the world’s best-ever coaches (Pep Guardiola). I think Vincent is a student of the game. I spent half-an-hour with him after the first match, and he came across as a student of the game. He’s a very humble man, and has a lot of emotional intelligence that can take the team along with him. In my view, that’s the way forward for coaches."
LEARNING
“You have to be able to connect with your footballers. It’s not us and them, you have to be part of their journey and they have to feel that you’re teaching them and showing them new ideas. Every day should be a learning day, and I feel as though Vincent is on that journey of being a young coach who is testing what he believes in and what he’s learned over his career. He’s doing very, very well.”
CLUB SIZES
“We shouldn’t really compare ourselves with Burnley, and yet it’s wrong to say that because this is a massive football club. Burnley, with total respect, might be a huge club that were in the Premier League for a number of years, but it can’t be the size of this football club."
PREMIER LEAGUE
“So, somewhere down the line, we have to get the recruitment right, we have to get the coaching right, we have to get everything right to win on the field, so that we give the team and club the chance to experience the Premier League again and enjoy it together. The fans deserve the Premier League, and yet the context of this season is that we have just spent four years in League One. We bounced out, but the other two teams that came up with us are really struggling to stay in the league."
LONG-TERM
“We have to grow the club. The league is so different now, because of the money trickling into the Championship from the Premier League, that you can’t just bounce through. We did it in the 1980s (with Middlesbrough), bounced through two leagues, but there’s not many teams can do that now because of the strength and depth of the teams coming down.”
