Two and a half weeks ago, Steve Cooper and Vincent Kompany came up against each other as managers for the first time when we played Nottingham Forest in the League Cup, and tomorrow night they will be on the City Ground touchline again, this time in the Premier League.
Cooper, since that last meeting, has been busy seeing the recruitment of new players with a total of seven arriving on transfer deadline day. He spoke about integrating those players and said: “It’s definitely a process, that’s for sure.
“We learned that last season. We had to go through the process of becoming a team, then it was fairly similar when we picked up all the injuries in the second half of the season where we had to reset again. It’s definitely a balancing act when you bring some players in, in terms of integration into the team, and hopefully we can get that balancing right.”
He added: “It’s a competitive group now, there’s strength in depth and real competition for places which is what we want from goalkeeper to the players at the top of the pitch. That’s the sort of culture you want, where players have to work hard to be in the next team.”
Planning to take on the Clarets again, Cooper said: “We didn’t cover ourselves in glory last time against Burnley and I didn’t enjoy the performance one bit, so there’s always bits to learn from. Sometimes the best way to learn is through the bad games and the tough moments, and that certainly wasn’t one we did well in at all.
“Whether that has an impact on Monday, I’m not too sure. We’ll just be focusing on ourselves and how we commit to the plan that we feel will be the right one for the game. If we do that, then we give ourselves a good chance of picking up the result we want.”
With us having had a second weekend off last week, this time for the first international break of the season, Vincent Kompany has a big squad to select from and he said about his internationals: “Everyone has come back ready to go.”
Of that break, and with players missing, he explained: “It was still good for us because there were a few that didn’t go which meant we got to spend more time working with them and maybe work more specifically and individually. We’re just borderline where it’s still interesting. You get teams where everyone is going and you’re left with three or four players and you’re looking at each other and asking what do we do now?
“That’s not where we’re at. We still have enough players where we can make it very interesting and good for us to work with players and that’s what we’ve done over the past week.”
Looking forward to our first away game in the league season, he added: “For us, this season, we know the challenge is a big one to show we belong in this league, but in the end there’s a bigger plan where we believe we can thrive in the Premier League.
“Everything is going to be about progress for us, making sure we get better and the habits we need to have every single day to achieve this goal. That doesn’t happen with one result, negative or positive, it happens with what you do every day. It’s to paint that picture again.”
He was happy with the performance at Forest in the League Cup but said it would not be an advantage to us going into this game. He joked: “It did until they got seven players in on deadline day, so I don’t know. They did a few things differently against us in the Carabao Cup which they haven’t done too much of in the Premier League, but that game is done and this is a new one now.”
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