'Difficult puzzle to solve': Vincent Kompany explains Burnley's transfer strategy of buying young

The Clarets made 15 new signings last summer following their Championship title win, with the club adopting a clear strategy of signing the best up-and-coming talent from the continent.

The likes of James Trafford, Hannes Delcroix, Aaron Ramsey, Wilson Odobert, Luca Koleosho, Zeki Amdouni were all recruited.

While Kompany admits it’s always important to strike a fine balance between youth and experience, he suggests with the money available Burnley simply had to go down this route.

“The strategy is not playing younger players, that’s not the strategy,” he said.

“The strategy is a decision, that is made by the club by the way, that with the finances available that we have – if you made a league of what the clubs can spend, you’d probably give massive credit to how Luton have approached this season, but otherwise it’s Luton, Sheffield United and Burnley, that’s about who you would find at the bottom of the financial league – so you have to find a way to get out of it.

“You either go for the experienced route, but the way the league has gone now you need that athleticism and if these guys don’t succeed, you have no resale value because they’re already on high wages.

“If you get relegated, these guys won’t accept a reduction in pay if you go to the Championship. They will say: ‘no, I’m a Premier League player, if we go down you sort it out’. You can take that strategy but it may also tank you but it’s definitely not going to grow you anyway.

“The other way is to have a balance between some experienced players and some youngsters. The profits made by Brighton, for example, they’re not generated by having 500 weddings at the Amex Stadium, it’s because they sell players at a high value.

“That fine balance between performance and being in that development phase, it’s a difficult puzzle to solve but we didn’t really have any other intermediary options.

“But you look at the progress of our team at this moment in time, how it’s performing, it’s still an urgent goal to get this team to roll into the next season in the Premier League because we can see how well they have performed.”

While Kompany realises the importance of having experience in your squad, he stressed they still have to fit the right profile.

“The key thing is, these guys still have the athleticism. Charlie [Taylor] is still a very good athlete,” he added.

“The way the league has developed now, even to my time you can have all the experience you want but if you go and stand on that pitch and you can’t run, good luck. It’s just impossible.

“It’s like the entry fee you have to pay for this league nowadays. Everything else won’t matter if you’re not able to do that.

“That level of experience mixed with the reality of the Premier League, you can either grow it within your club or go and buy it, but it’s really expensive and it’s really difficult to do that.”