'Fresh & modern': Aston Villa boss Unai Emery's praise for Vincent Kompany ahead of Burnley meeting

The Clarets return to action on Sunday afternoon when they welcome Villa to Turf Moor for a 2pm kick-off.

Kompany’s side will be aiming to pick up their first points of the season after losing 3-0 to reigning champions Manchester City in their opening fixture.

Despite making a losing return to the top flight, Emery has been hugely impressed with what Kompany has offered since taking over in East Lancashire.

“Amazing, really I appreciate the new coaches when they are bringing something different to football,” he said.

“He played as a player a lot of matches. He has a lot of experience as a player and it is clear that he was a player who was learning a lot. Now, he is giving us fresh and modern football.

"I appreciate a lot how he was coaching last year at Burnley. I didn’t watch matches of Burnley last year but I followed them how they were winning and how they were performing.

“They didn’t play last week against Luton, but we analysed how they played last year and it is very good for football to watch new coaches with modern football playing.

“It’s a big challenge because they are playing with young players, with some players who aren’t experienced, but they are playing very well.”

Burnley weren’t in action last week after their scheduled fixture against Luton Town was postponed owing to the ongoing ground improvements at the Hatters’ Kenilworth Road stadium.

By the time Vincent Kompany’s men line up against Villa, 16 days will have passed since the club’s Premier League opener against Manchester City.

As for Emery’s side, they bounced back from their opening day defeat to Newcastle United in emphatic style, overcoming Everton 4-0 before thrashing Hibernian 5-0 in the first leg of their Europa Conference League qualifier.

Analysing how Burnley’s free weekend might impact on their performance, Emery added: “I like to play matches more than training here. We are going to try to play a lot of matches this year because it means we are performing well in competitions.

“The Conference League is very important for us and I am very happy with the performance we had on Wednesday and the idea we are building.

“We are going to be very demanding to try and improve and we are not forgetting the match we lost two weeks ago in Newcastle. These are bad experiences, but real experiences that we have.

“We have to be competitive playing away, more than what we were in Newcastle and we have to be competitive like we were last year for most of the time. We have to be focused to increase our level.”