Vincent Kompany has insisted he will not lose belief in his Burnley side even if gaps begin to open up at the foot of the Premier League.
Bournemouth’s 2-0 win at Crystal Palace on Wednesday night was their third league victory in four, lifting the Cherries nine points clear of the relegation zone.
Burnley and fellow promoted sides Luton and Sheffield United remain stuck in single figures for points after 15 games and, although Everton are only just ahead after their 10-point penalty, there is a risk of them being cut adrift before the mid-point of the season.
But asked if the prospect of a gap opening up would affect belief and confidence, Kompany responded: “That would maybe happen with other people but I don’t really work like this. I am sorry, I cannot relate one bit.”
“I tend not to pay too much attention to the league table because that doesn’t get me points against Brighton (on Saturday), it doesn’t get me points in the game after,” he added.
“I’m not surprised to see some of those teams pick up points and do well. I’ve seen the squads, I’ve got an understanding now of what they have in terms of quality and I haven’t been surprised in any shape or form by how the league is shaping up.
“The only thing I’m focusing on now is making sure that first we are trying to get our performances up and then we’ve got to perform consistently.”
After the confidence boost of last weekend’s 5-0 rout of Sheffield United, Tuesday’s 1-0 loss to Wolves was a sobering one as, not for the first time, an individual mistake was punished and another decent performance went unrewarded.
“We’ve had consistently good performances now, and that needs to yield points,” Kompany added. “That’s the only thing I focus on because if you have consistency in performances and you believe you get the points then you shouldn’t worry about anybody else.”
Tuesday’s loss also came at a much greater cost with impressive young winger Luca Koleosho suffering a knee injury which is expected to sideline the 19-year-old for much of the rest of the season.
Kompany has depth in the wide positions but admitted it would be no simple task to replace a player who has made an immediate impact since joining in the summer.
“Luca was a little bit on a level of his own at the moment, so you don’t just replace that by putting another person in,” Kompany said. “The other person has just to do something that’s he able to do himself.
“The big thing for me now is, OK, we don’t have Luca anymore. Can we use the best of (Jacob) Bruun Larsen, or (Wilson) Odobert or Mike Tresor or Anass Zaroury or (Manuel) Benson? We’ve still got players. Now we have to rely on those players to bring what they’ve got to the game.”
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