David Fofana’s fourth goal in eight games was enough to give the Clarets a vital home victory over Brentford, but Vincent Kompany wants more from his on-loan striker.
The 21-year-old’s clever finish came after he squandered two guilt-edged chances on the stroke of halftime, one of which will almost probably go down as the season’s miss.
“He can still get better,” Kompany remarked. “That’s what we want to achieve with him since he scored one but could have scored two or three.
“He definitely gave us what we needed defensively for around 45 minutes, but he could have done more for the last 45 minutes. But I believe we will back our players, help them, and ensure they improve.”
Before the Brentford game, the Clarets manager stated that the Premier League this season is more of a’striker’s league’. When pushed to elaborate, he stated, “It’s basically every game I watch. I don’t see many defenders handling their opponents right now. It makes no difference who you play if you look at how many times Tottenham strikers appear, or if you watch every team.
“I think it’s good for football, but there’s more runs in behind, so it’s also a little bit more difficult to just sit back and defend because teams tactically understand how to create overloads and pin you in. Every time has good principles of reacting to losing the ball, recovering the ball, and transitioning again. That counter-press, it used to be only done by Liverpool, but City were also one of the teams doing it, but now every team counter-presses.”
“That means that simply inviting them to come makes it more difficult to get out than it used to be. Even throughout transitions. I suppose by default, teams are more aggressive and push high. They have the profiles to do so because each player can run 12km or 12.5km, 1,200m at high intensity, and some 600-700m sprints.
“I’m watching the entire league. Bournemouth has Solanke and Semenyo, Fulham has Raul Jimenez, Wolves has Cunha, and so on; they all have true high-quality players up front. The areas become larger because they must, but the strikes are of good quality. Just look at Brentford; they have Ivan Toney up front, Wissa, and Mbuemo.
“We also have those players who can hurt opposing teams, but every club has that. Brighton has Evan Ferguson, and so forth. You keep going.
“I recall when I was playing, teams might have a defensive advantage and utilize it. But it doesn’t seem that way to me anymore. Maybe you people will dig deeper and say it’s not true, but when I look at every game, it appears to be that way.”
