Why Vincent Kompany has grounds for optimism despite Burnley's league struggles

The Clarets boss has been pleased with the progress many of his players have made over the course of the season, especially some of the youngsters brought in during the summer transfer window.

While Burnley remain in a dogfight to preserve their Premier League status, sitting five points adrift of safety, Kompany remains confident his team is heading in the right direction.

“I can see it from the entire team,” he said.

“I know what the reality of the points is, what the reality of the league is and whether we get there in time or not, it’s for us to try and deliver.

“But I’m relatively optimistic because I do see players that are much, much further ahead than what they were three or four months ago. That’s the biggest job for me as a coach, to get them forward.

“For someone like Mikey (Tresor), he’s shown spells of talent but someone like Wilson (Odobert) as well, he’s only 19, but he doesn’t play like a 19-year-old kid.

“You’ve got a few players who are young in this league, but not many. But it’s tough to earn a spot in this league at that age and he looks like a player who can do that.

“If you look at the rate of improvement of all these players over the last three months, the guarantee with these players is that if they stay in a stable mindset they will only improve even quicker.

“That’s an exciting prospect as a manager because the team where it is now has still got a lot of room to improve between now and the end of the season.

“We’ve been close to results, really, really close many times now. I hope that scoring two goals will be matched with not conceding and not conceding will be matched with scoring a goal, that’s the fine margin we’re talking about. But these players are all taking those steps.

“They’ve got output, so these guys are having assists and goals and I’m sure they’re going to continue to do so.”