Defender Taylor Harwood-Bellis jumped at the chance to play for Vincent Kompany again at Burnley

The highly-rated Manchester City centre back was praying for the call in the summer as soon as the Etihad legend was announced as Sean Dyche's successor.

The 21-year-old, who grew up celebrating the EFL Championship Manager of the Year's successes as City captain, played 19 times for Anderlecht during Kompany's reign in the Belgian Pro League.

And the defender didn't need asking twice to become the Premier League Hall of Famer's fourth addition at Turf Moor, following on from the signings of Scott Twine, Luke McNally and CJ Egan-Riley.

"I'm learning loads under the manager [Vincent Kompany] everyday and I'm putting in a lot of hard work, so I feel I've improved a lot from the start of the season, but I've still got a long way to go," said the England Under 21 skipper.

"It's the way he explains things, his tips and tricks, and it helps a lot with him being a centre-half. He's been a massive influence on my career so far and hopefully he can influence it more in the future.

"He's arguably one of the best centre halves to play in the Premier League, never-mind just at City. When he was captain he was the face of the club and when he was playing that's when I was watching football the most. I watched a lot of him and celebrated a lot of his victories."

He added: "From the first week in Belgium at Anderlecht you could see that his mentality rubs off on people and that's what makes a good leader, making the people around you better. That's what he does.

"As soon as I had a phone call and said that he wanted me to play for him that was it. As soon as he called me it was 100%. After working with him at Anderlecht I knew straight away. As soon as I saw that he'd got the Burnley job I was hoping I'd get a phone call and luckily I did. I was buzzing."

Harwood-Bellis, who had previously spent time on loan with Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers in the Championship, has contributed to 13 clean sheets in 34 appearances in all competitions for the Clarets this season.

He's been in regular contact with representatives at City, who are on course to land their fifth Premier League title in the last six seasons.

With just one year left on his contract, the topic of conversation at the end of the season will likely switch to what comes next for the youngster.

"There's a loan team at City so it's not directly with the manager [Pep Guardiola] because he's got a lot of games and probably way more important things going on than me," Harwood-Bellis concluded.

"There have been conversations with City, they've been seeing how I am, they've sent clips across from the first team to show what they're doing and how I can put that into my game, so there have been a lot of conversations. It's just based on me wanting to improve, wanting to get better, and see what I can do to one day play at the best level."