Burnley boss Vincent Kompany on JJ Watt's comments about relegation, job security and calmness

The club’s minority shareholder JJ Watt this week admitted the Clarets had prepared for all eventualities this season, including relegation, claiming it would be “irresponsible” to do otherwise.

While Kompany refuses to give up in Burnley’s bid for survival, he acknowledges relegation always had to be factored in as a possibility.

“It’s really important to stress that these plans were made back in the summer, about what a scenario looks like if you stay up and what a scenario looks like if you go down. You build on that,” he said.

“Once the season starts, it just takes all your energy, focus and attention to just be locked into. That belief doesn’t come out of nowhere, you’re looking under rocks and stones to find that little bit of something to give you something special.

“Right now it’s not a word we want to use, but we didn’t shy away from it during the summer. That’s probably why the club is so calm still and why we have that togetherness.

“It was done long before this moment now.”

Despite Burnley sitting second bottom on just 13 points from their 24 games, Kompany’s job is safe.

While Kompany doesn’t take that job security for granted, it’s also something he doesn’t pay a great deal of attention to.

“At 17 I started at Anderlecht so I’ve been in this environment for 20 years and I fully understand that nothing gets given. Even the calmness we have, it’s not just given,” he said.

“I don’t think either scenario would unsettle me more, it’s more the effect we have on players, the effect we have on the next game. That’s always the goal.

“The rest, which manager? Who? What? It has personal implications of course but it’s not something I think about. I really don’t.

“If I say to my players the next game can always be the one that defines you more than any game you’ve played before, then look to Saturday. If not Saturday, the game after that. It’s a mindset.

“I’ve been in situations where there’s been more pressure. Not on me, but on the environment and the surroundings. I’ve been in environments like this one where it’s an example of how to go through tough times together.

“But I’m resilient for either scenario. My main focus is the team and the results.”

Looking at the bigger picture, Kompany remains encouraged by what is happening at Gawthorpe – irrespective of what is happening at 3pm on a Saturday.

“I’m excited every day to come into work and work with these players. Every game I’m seeing things in these players,” he said.

“They will belong in the Premier League, but my concern is that I want them to belong there right now. That’s what all my attention goes to.

“With many, many players I can see the progress. You can name them yourselves and of course bringing in some fresh faces in January helped as well.

“Any moment can be a turning point. That’s how they’ve been performing, it’s just the results. I have to look at what these guys are bringing, not also what they’re doing wrong.”