Vincent Kompany has told his Burnley players they still have the opportunity to do something special this season as they attempt an increasingly unlikely escape from relegation trouble.

The Clarets go into Saturday’s home match against Brentford 10 points from safety with 10 games left, having taken only three league wins all season.

But Kompany, who led Burnley to promotion from the Championship last season with 101 points, said he had not yet given up on a miracle escape.

“What I do in my life is I look for any opportunity to do something special and this season can still be that,” he said.

“Why throw away this opportunity? There are 10 games left and you never know. We experienced something fantastic last year but there is absolutely no reason why the next 10 games can’t give us the same feeling back and that’s how we have to approach it.”

Asked if survival from Burnley’s current position would be a greater achievement than last season’s utter domination of the Championship, Kompany initially said “yes”, but then took a moment to recall the position he found the club in when he arrived in May 2022.

The need to pay off debts had already accounted for much of the parachute money the club was due following relegation, while an ageing squad was about to be dismantled as assets were sold and older players came to the end of their deals.

“For some reason I was looking at the squad planning for May 2022 and I had two players,” Kompany said.

“Let that sink in, two players. We built from that to the point now where we have stories about why is he playing and why is he not playing.

“We had two players and everyone else was leaving. We managed to re-sign Jack Cork, (Johann Berg) Gudmundsson stayed and Jay Rodriguez and a couple of others but we built from nothing with no parachute money, so it was a pretty decent achievement.”

Kompany retains the support of the club’s hierarchy and reiterated that everyone throughout the club understands the process they are going through and the focus on the long-term, even if that looks like resulting in relegation this term.

“I think everyone in the club understands that and that’s why we don’t get dragged into (discussing) anything other than the next game,” he said.

“That’s all that matters. We said it at the beginning of the season and we’ve been consistent.

“The only priority for us is to make the most of the next 10 games we have and at the end we can reflect again. Probably that is why the club has been fairly consistent and calm.”