Kompany tipped to handle Man City, nevertheless it do not all the time work

Vincent Kompany will get a primary style of life within the dug-out on the Etihad Stadium when he takes his Championship staff Burnley to face Manchester City within the FA Cup quarterfinals on Saturday (stream reside on ESPN+, 1.45 p.m., U.S. Only.)

“Vinny’s destiny to be manager of City is written in the stars,” Pep Guardiola stated earlier this month after his aspect have been drawn in opposition to Kompany’s membership within the final eight. “It’s going to happen, I don’t know when, but it will happen.”

It was a daring assertion by Guardiola a couple of 36-year-old who’s in solely his fourth season of administration after his first three have been spent in Belgium with Anderlecht. But the City boss had good purpose to recommend that Kompany will, sooner or later, turn out to be one in all his successors.

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Kompany is essentially the most profitable captain in City’s historical past, successful 4 Premier League titles, 4 EFL Cups and two FA Cups throughout 11 seasons on the membership. In his first marketing campaign as Burnley supervisor, he’s now simply three wins away from attaining promotion to the Premier League.

When he arrived at Turf Moor in the summertime, Kompany, who in 2017 graduated from Manchester Business School with a grasp’s diploma in enterprise administration, advised ESPN he had taken over at a “very delicate and dangerous time” because of the membership needing to dump gamers and reduce prices to service a £55 million mortgage.

But regardless of the plain pitfalls and dangers of placing his status on the road at Burnley, Kompany has reworked the membership and the staff’s enjoying model. He has overcome the chances to maneuver inside touching distance of promotion. Now Burnley journey to City with the boldness that they might shock the reigning Premier League champions. So when Guardiola speaks so extremely of his former captain, it’s clear to see why. Kompany is a rising star in administration and Burnley will face a battle to maintain him sooner reasonably than later.

Yet whether or not Kompany’s profession path in the end takes him again to City is right down to him not solely sustaining his upwards trajectory, but additionally about being strategic in his selections. One unhealthy transfer might scupper his hopes of managing City endlessly. Football is affected by managers who have been “destined” for a sure membership, solely to have their ambitions derailed by making the suitable alternative on the mistaken time.

Steven Gerrard was constructing a transparent path in direction of the Liverpool job by making such a powerful begin to administration in Scotland with Rangers, however his transfer to Aston Villa in November 2021 turned out to be extra of a trapdoor than a stepping stone, and he was sacked after lower than a 12 months at Villa Park. His prospects of in the future succeeding Jurgen Klopp at Anfield seem to have gone up in smoke just because he made a nasty alternative by leaving Rangers for Villa.

Patrick Vieira was additionally earmarked to turn out to be a future City supervisor, having spent eight years inside the City Football Group as participant, youth-team coach after which the coach of New York City FC in MLS. But after an unsuccessful 18-month spell answerable for French membership Nice, the previous Arsenal captain is now in a relegation battle at Crystal Palace; the times of being tipped to handle City, or Arsenal, look like lengthy gone.

The record of former Manchester United gamers who have been recognized as apparent successors to Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford — Steve Bruce, Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs amongst them — has turn out to be an analogous story of hopes being dashed by poor selections and unhealthy outcomes.

Frank Lampard is maybe an exception, having been appointed as Chelsea supervisor in 2019 after only a 12 months in administration with Derby County. But had Chelsea not been below a worldwide switch ban, and subsequently unappealing to the sport’s elite coaches, it’s questionable as as to whether Lampard, a Chelsea legend, would have even been provided the job.

Lampard, like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United in 2018, was handed a route again to his former membership as a result of they have been in bother and in want of a determine from the previous, whose status as a participant might spark a revival and instill some type of feelgood issue. That would be the solely means for Gerrard to finish up at Liverpool — a sticking plaster appointment reasonably than being on the high of his occupation.

Mikel Arteta was handed the Arsenal job in 2019 in comparable circumstances, and the previous Gunners’ midfielder has grasped his alternative and made it work, however he’s a rarity in doing that.

Right now, Kompany is but to be tainted by the failure that has broken the ambitions of a few of his contemporaries, so his future choices stay alive. He might show Guardiola proper by in the future taking the City job, nevertheless it will not be his achievements at Burnley that persuade the membership’s hierarchy he’s the person to take cost on the Etihad. It shall be his subsequent transfer, and possibly even the one after that, which dictates whether or not he’s on target to handle City.

Being a membership legend helps on the subject of administration, nevertheless it solely takes you to this point and Kompany has loads of street to cowl earlier than reaches the Etihad. He might want to proceed to win, but additionally be astute together with his selections alongside the best way, to keep away from the setbacks suffered by Gerrard, Vieira and all these former United gamers.

Beating City and knocking them out of the FA Cup this weekend definitely will not hurt his prospects.