Vincent Kompany on what he will demand from his Burnley players

But he explained what he will expect of his players, and look to instill, in the time he has on the training pitch, and in the warm-up games, ahead of the opener at the John Smith’s Stadium.

Burnley open their friendly schedule on Friday against Rochdale, behind closed doors at Gawthorpe, before a double-header on Saturday, July 9th against Wolves - behind-closed-doors at the Sir Jack Hayward Training Centre – with a seperate side on duty against Burton Albion at the Pirelli Stadium, kick-off 3-30 p.m.

The Clarets are then at former boss Steve Cotterill’s Shrewsbury Town on Friday, July 15th, before spending six days in Lisbon, with two behind-closed-doors matches scheduled to be played.

Kompany played a 4-2-2-2 at Anderlecht in the main, with Kjell Doms, who covers Kompany’s former club for HLN in Belgium, saying: "He wants his team to never abandon the beautiful game. Building up from the back, so he needs central defenders and a goalkeeper with good feet.

"He played a rather particular 4-2-2-2 system, with no real wingers, but midfielders who have tendencies to come to the centre.

"He liked a very energetic attacker who can run and keep running (Christian Kouamé) in combination with a guy who's well capable of keeping the ball and good link-up play (Joshua Zirkzee).”

Whether he looks to implement the same system remains to be seen, but Kompany explained: "I maybe just make a distinction between style and system - it was a system, and I think a system you try and adapt to the players you have.

"At Anderlecht we couldn;t stop producing midfielders, so it was easier to play this system.

"The coincidence is that this club has been built around a 4-4-2 for many years, so we'll see.

"But the style - I think any coach tries to find a style that reflects his personality, you can go to bed and feel proud about what you've done and in line with what you believe in.

"With me it's a mix, I've always liked a style where you can create something out of your possession - scoring goals and having impact with a lot of runs and movement...I'm painting a picture right? Don't come and tell me after the first game at Huddersfield why haven't we seen all that yet?!

"It's where you want to get.

"From a defensive side, most of you know that I do have a little bit of an aggressive side to me, and I can't have any of my players pulling out of challenges, no way.

"Players will have to be on the front foot, run hard and I think the north west is not a bad fit for that.

"In the end, if I have to summarise how I start my approach to any work I do with the team, I try to give them solutions to score a goal from any phase of play.

"If our goalkeeper has the ball,how do we score? If their goalkeeper has the ball, how do we score?

"If there is a throw in for them, how do we score? If there's a throw in for us...

"Any answer I'm trying to give to the problems within the game, it's in that way.

"Does it happen overnight? No.

"Hence the reason I come back to the question about short term, long term, hence the reason it was a long-term commitment, hence the reason I decided to go to a place where you start with at least a feeling that it's going to go that way, rather than a carousel of coaching.”