CHILLED CLARET
Vin not daunted by must-win clash
VINCENT KOMPANY insists the pressure is off Burnley in their must-win clash at Tottenham tomorrow.
The Clarets must beat Spurs and then Nottingham Forest in their final game and hope Nuno Espirito Santo’s side do not pick up a point against Chelsea tomorrow to have any hope of surviving.
Even then, Burnley would still need Luton – two points above them and with a better goal difference – to slip up to escape the bottom three for the first time this season.
Kompany knows the odds are heavily stacked against his side and has tried to ease the pressure on them by billing this weekend as “an opportunity”.
“I wouldn’t describe this game as a high-pressure game for us,” said the Burnley boss. “Why would it be? I don’t think we’ve anything to lose.
“If you go into this weekend and you’re protecting a two-point lead, I can see how this is a different mindset.
“And perhaps I’d be, not naive, but perhaps I’d be trying to convince myself more if I was saying there was no pressure at that moment in time.
“But in this case, I genuinely believe that for us it’s an opportunity. “If that energy can live from now and hopefully into the last game, but I don’t even want to think about the Forest game right now, I think this is our last game.
“If we give ourselves a final against Forest, that’s a final. But this is our last game of the regular season, that’s how we’ve got to look at it.”
Kompany wants his players to focus on beating Tottenham and to forget about Forest and Luton.
He has told them they must believe they can still do something special.
“We’ve got to believe,” he said. “On any given day, the players can do something special and that’s the mindset for Saturday. “Can it be that day where you do something special? We’ve hit it from 30 yards out into the top corner as well this season. Not enough, but it could be that day and that’s what we have to believe in our next game.”
Kompany has also held up Ian Maatsen as an example of what former Burnley players can achieve, as the onloan Chelsea defender has reached the Champions League final with Borussia Dortmund after spending last season on loan at Turf Moor.
“He was in the Championship with us, he was a talented player, but he was never too big for us in his mentality,” he said.
“I’m not surprised that he’s reaching the levels he’s reaching. And I think we have players in this team who will go on and do the same thing.”