Bristol City will encounter a familiar foe in the form of Josh Brownhill on Saturday and while he’ll undoubtedly bring his wholehearted and committed attitude to his performance, there may also be something a little different about the way he operates over the 90 minutes.
Since joining Burnley in the summer as head coach, Vincent Kompany has increasingly stationed Brownhill further up the field, as an overtly attacking midfielder, releasing him of his deeper defensive duties and giving greater licence to impact the penalty area.
He’s been rewarded with four goals and two assists from the boots of the Lancastrian and he’ll be a significant threat for City to counter when they take on the Clarets this weekend.
Playing the 26-year-old higher up the field is symbolic of Kompany’s approach, and how he’s trying to evolve Burnley’s identity beyond the days of Sean Dyche, with them now a fast-paced and dynamic, high-pressing side; all characteristics of Brownhill’s time at City.
Over 161 appearances he developed into a dynamic box-to-box midfielder, capable of destructive tackles, lung-busting bursts forward and with a canny knack of scoring important goals, either from range or by arriving late into the penalty area.
Kompany has now taken those qualities and moved them 20 or so yards forward, meaning his snap in the tackle and creativity is deployed in greater areas of harm and vulnerability for the opposition. It’s a role that has so far proved successful but one in which his manager believes there is more to come.
"You just have to look at the impact he has on our squad," Kompany told the Burnley Express. "It's not just on the pitch, it's in terms of leadership. He gives you so much energy and, on the other hand, it doesn't take much for him to score a goal or to get a chance.
“I still feel he's learning the position and that's really exciting because if you give it another three or four months he'll feel the position. Once that happens a player of his quality can have a really defining impact for us this season.
"If you line up the tasks there's no reason why he can't play that position really, really well. He just needs a bit more experience in that position, but what he's shown already in a short period of time, it's probably more than what you could have anticipated at this point."
Brownhill’s position at Burnley was of significant interest to City over the summer, given the 20 per cent resale clause they hold following his sale for around £9.5m in January 2020. There was, and will be, consistent interest from within the Premier League, most notably West Ham who tried to gazump the Clarets two-and-a-half years ago when he was leaving Ashton Gate.
But Kompany was adamant that having witnessed the departures and sales of such important players as Nick Pope, James Tarkowski, Ben Mee, Nathan Collins, Dwight McNeil and Maxwel Cornet, Brownhill would not be another leaving Turf Moor with a promotion challenge to mount.
As a product of a Manchester City-mad family, staying at Burnley, even in the Championship, the prospect of working under a bona fide legend of the club wouldn't have meant Brownhill needed too much convincing to stay and work his way back into the Premier League.
"I think there were concessions we had to do early doors, which other teams that were relegated didn't have to do when you look at the Norwich and Watford squads. We dealt with it, we accepted that it was a reality, and we let a number of players go to finance the entry of others,” Kompany added.
"At the same time, as soon as we allowed certain players to go, we knew that we didn't have to do that any more. Of course there was interest in Brownhill, but there's a limit to what we needed to be doing to set ourselves back up."
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