George Hannah
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I agree, far too moderateRascal said:
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Vincent Kompany
- Thread starter WARD21
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BlueAnorak
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Hey guess who tweaked his hamstring on Monday @Palace and hasn't trained all weeK?
Gaylord du Bois
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That wouldn't be the same Vincent Kompany that Sky, Twitter and sundry have been saying will miss Sundays game because of injury, would it?BlueAnorak said:Hey guess who tweaked his hamstring on Monday @Palace and hasn't trained all weeK?
BlueAnorak
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Gaylord du Bois said:That wouldn't be the same Vincent Kompany that Sky, Twitter and sundry have been saying will miss Sundays game because of injury, would it?BlueAnorak said:Hey guess who tweaked his hamstring on Monday @Palace and hasn't trained all weeK?
[video]https://youtu.be/Va_Rmpd3PZI?t=17[/video]
Could be...
Gaylord du Bois
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Pfft, call yourself an Anorak? ;)BlueAnorak said:Gaylord du Bois said:That wouldn't be the same Vincent Kompany that Sky, Twitter and sundry have been saying will miss Sundays game because of injury, would it?BlueAnorak said:Hey guess who tweaked his hamstring on Monday @Palace and hasn't trained all weeK?
[video]https://youtu.be/Va_Rmpd3PZI?t=17[/video]
Could be...
Cellarite
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Something that I can't get out of my mind was what I saw him do in the same Israel v Belgium match when he was sent off.
The ball came to him in the centre circle, he tried 3 or 4 kick ups and then volleyed at goal. The shot landed somewhere in Palestine and kicked off another battle.
I worry that he believes that he is far better than what he is and really needs to get back to basics.
If he's fit for tomorrow, we need him on absolute top form. He knows he can play Weetabixhead out of a game.
The ball came to him in the centre circle, he tried 3 or 4 kick ups and then volleyed at goal. The shot landed somewhere in Palestine and kicked off another battle.
I worry that he believes that he is far better than what he is and really needs to get back to basics.
If he's fit for tomorrow, we need him on absolute top form. He knows he can play Weetabixhead out of a game.
Pablo ZZZ Peroni
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Burt in Telegraph:
Vincent Kompany comes out fighting. He rails against the criticism Manchester City have faced this season, against how the “established order” tried to keep them out of the elite through Financial Fair Play rules and against the general failure to “see the bigger picture” with regard to what is happening at the club. There is also a siren call to “regroup and strike back”. There is also the not-inconsequential matter of the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon that remains City’s “big game” of the season and how foolish it would be to write his team off.
“Anyone who wants to put money on us not winning anything in the future feel free to do so but I wouldn’t put too much on,” Kompany says.
There will be more talk of money later. But first the fighting. “There were a couple of punch bags,” the defender says, wistfully describing what he first encountered at City’s former training ground in Carrington. Kompany then explains the extraordinary transformation he has witnessed since he signed in August 2008 from Hamburg for about £6 million, just a month before the Abu Dhabi United Group acquired City and changed the landscape of English football. They also changed the landscape of east Manchester, an area desperately in need of inner-city regeneration and with City having recently opened the breathtaking, state-of-the-art £150 million City Football Academy, which has been built on a huge swathe of former industrial wasteland and benefits the local community.
It is a long, long way from what Kompany first came across at Carrington, with those old punchbags. “One was cut down the middle and there was just one glove,” Kompany recalls. “If you were doing a boxing session you had to go ‘right, right, right’ then change and do it ‘left, left, left’. “There was a medical room shared by 40 or 50 lads with three beds. And that was the club that I signed for. So why doesn’t a club like this deserve to go a [higher] level? The fans, most of them were there when City were in League One and now they can say they have been champions again. Why not? Bigger clubs just have to ‘buy [swallow] the pill’ sometimes. It’s fairer than anything else, I think.”
On occasions since, City have felt like punchbags, Kompany feels. “Most people still don’t understand what this club is trying to do,” he explains, after a children’s street party to mark the unveiling of an impressive 64 metre-long mural at the Academy Stadium, which features drawings by young City fans, covering night leagues, girls football, disabled football and other community projects.
So it is not just about the money, even though there has been vast investment from Abu Dhabi. For Kompany it always had to be more than that. “Yes, definitely,” he says. “Because eventually you fail. You can only keep that facade for so long. What you do for your community, what you do for your fans, what you do for the people who follow the club is ultimately what establishes your fan base. “Your fan base grows but the real loyalty of fans takes time and you have to work harder for it but that’s what I have been seeing at this club ever since the new owners came in. I’ve never seen it just as money invested in players. That’s just part of it. I’ve seen this happening.”
He has also invested in it emotionally as club captain, “a massive honour”. “You know what,” he says. “I didn’t feel I got the captaincy by wearing the armband. As soon as I joined the club then straight away we were in a corner where punches were landed, you know? “From the minute where people talked about the investment in Man City, they were happy to criticise and you had that feeling it was us against the world. Ask me and I felt like this was my project too. I’ve not put my money into it but I’ve put my sweat and blood into it and I’m passionate about it and I want it to succeed as much as the owners want it to succeed.”
This is why Kompany is so passionately opposed to the way that Uefa has implemented its FFP rules. City were hit with a £49 million fine last year, as well as squad and transfer restrictions, for breaching the regulations. “I think there needs to be a format that people respect,” he says. “When you get into a club you need to subscribe to be in there for a number of years. You need to maybe commit to a certain number of regulations but, in this case, who are you protecting? That’s my question. If City hadn’t done what they did four of five years ago, it might have been too late [to join the elite]. What you do [with FFP] is actually protect the few who already have the things geared up to create enough revenue for them and invest more than anyone else.”
Is it the established order looking after itself? “That’s how I look at it anyway,” Kompany says. “You go into the business world and you can’t say to anyone, they cannot invest. I understand the fans have to be protected, the clubs have to be protected but plans need to be accepted. You win things; you get more fans. You get more fans; you create more revenue. That’s not a stupid way of thinking of investing in a business. “I do understand there needs to be regulation but I just wonder what is going to change at the top? When I came to England it was just four clubs at the top. Four. The same top four all the time and that’s changed now.”
There will also be a boon for England. “This is an academy that is supported to produce the best young players in the country in 10 years’ time, which will have an effect on the English national team as well,” the captain of Belgium says. “People fail to see the bigger picture. I keep going back to the amount of tax being paid by this club also. Surely that has to be good for people?”
That is the bigger picture. The immediate image is not so easy to promote. It has been a disappointing campaign for the champions. Kompany speaks of the small margins between success and failure and how he accepts that “anything but the top spot is not good enough”. But he also argues against any suggestion that either this squad lack the “mentality” to win back-to-back titles or that they are now too old. “If you are in good form and having a good season then people say, ‘Well, it’s experience that got you the trophies,’” Kompany, who turned 29 on Friday, says. “Think of the great AC Milan teams. But if we are in a period like we are now then all of a sudden it’s age that is a problem. For us, we need to think outside of it. We have been not as good as we could and that’s the bottom line. And we need to sort that.”
Kompany’s own form has been strongly questioned. “It’s very simple,” he says. “I always take myself a little bit out of the equation in the sense that when we do win titles I try to make sure I don’t think it’s all because of me. When we do have bad performances I know it’s not all because of me.” But how does he ignore the criticism? “Because I have been through everything,” Kompany says. “You know, the season when I got Barclays Premier League Player of the Year [2011-12], at the start of the season they were saying ‘the weakest part of the City team is the defence’. “Ultimately you have to accept that when the results are not there people criticise. Go through every single player in the team – which player is getting praised? None of us. It’s normal.
“Go to Argentina, they have something to say about Kun [Sergio Agüero]. Go to Belgium, they have something to say about me. Every country. David Silva they probably have something to say about him in Spain.
“We are not having the results that we need to have so we shouldn’t be hoping for people to sing our praises. We have the talent, we are fit, we are capable of turning it around and that’s all we need to concentrate on. I’ve been there and done it.
“It’s experience. There is not one bit of this experience that is not familiar to me. Don’t get emotionally involved. It’s advice to you as well.
“If someone has said you have written a s--- piece, don’t get emotionally involved. You learn. Bear in mind that everything that happens is out of proportion. You play well, you win one game and people say you are the best. I remember last year I was the best defender in the world after playing against Barcelona and then I got a red card against Hull and I was the worst within three days!”
Kompany laughs, before returning to the serious business of trying to win at Old Trafford, remarkably, for a fourth successive season. “I think it’s 50/50 going into those games and when I started playing for City it was 90/10 to them,” he says. “You knew you were going to Old Trafford and history was not good for you there. It’s different now. Every game is 50/50. Playing them at home, you never know, playing them away, you never know. It’s that kind of fixture. It means the world still. It has to be the game you look forward to.” It would also go a small way towards building a bridgehead for the rest of 2015. “It will mean everything to us if we win it,” Kompany says. “It’s a perfect opportunity for us to put a lot of it behind. But you cannot get satisfaction from a season that has slid away from you very quickly although we always have to believe in even what is impossible almost – because if that’s not in your DNA then you are doing it all wrong. I’d still like to think this is a way to kick off 2015.”
Have City failed? “If you look at this season you can say that but if you look at where we have come compared to where we have come from ... If you had been at Carrington six or seven years ago and then you come here then you know that we have not stalled. “For this season it’s a little bit of a setback because we have set high standards. But the ambitions are massive. People like myself, people you meet at the club, they will tell you how much drive there is to achieve all of this. That’s the only thing we care about. We only want to bring success to this club.
“It’s not about the walls. It’s about the people working behind the walls. I’m only going to be happy if we are always the best. It can go your way one year and then it can go the other the next year, but you have to be always ready to make that step up and go higher again. Everything you can sense here is that we regroup and we strike back.”
Vincent Kompany comes out fighting. He rails against the criticism Manchester City have faced this season, against how the “established order” tried to keep them out of the elite through Financial Fair Play rules and against the general failure to “see the bigger picture” with regard to what is happening at the club. There is also a siren call to “regroup and strike back”. There is also the not-inconsequential matter of the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon that remains City’s “big game” of the season and how foolish it would be to write his team off.
“Anyone who wants to put money on us not winning anything in the future feel free to do so but I wouldn’t put too much on,” Kompany says.
There will be more talk of money later. But first the fighting. “There were a couple of punch bags,” the defender says, wistfully describing what he first encountered at City’s former training ground in Carrington. Kompany then explains the extraordinary transformation he has witnessed since he signed in August 2008 from Hamburg for about £6 million, just a month before the Abu Dhabi United Group acquired City and changed the landscape of English football. They also changed the landscape of east Manchester, an area desperately in need of inner-city regeneration and with City having recently opened the breathtaking, state-of-the-art £150 million City Football Academy, which has been built on a huge swathe of former industrial wasteland and benefits the local community.
It is a long, long way from what Kompany first came across at Carrington, with those old punchbags. “One was cut down the middle and there was just one glove,” Kompany recalls. “If you were doing a boxing session you had to go ‘right, right, right’ then change and do it ‘left, left, left’. “There was a medical room shared by 40 or 50 lads with three beds. And that was the club that I signed for. So why doesn’t a club like this deserve to go a [higher] level? The fans, most of them were there when City were in League One and now they can say they have been champions again. Why not? Bigger clubs just have to ‘buy [swallow] the pill’ sometimes. It’s fairer than anything else, I think.”
On occasions since, City have felt like punchbags, Kompany feels. “Most people still don’t understand what this club is trying to do,” he explains, after a children’s street party to mark the unveiling of an impressive 64 metre-long mural at the Academy Stadium, which features drawings by young City fans, covering night leagues, girls football, disabled football and other community projects.
So it is not just about the money, even though there has been vast investment from Abu Dhabi. For Kompany it always had to be more than that. “Yes, definitely,” he says. “Because eventually you fail. You can only keep that facade for so long. What you do for your community, what you do for your fans, what you do for the people who follow the club is ultimately what establishes your fan base. “Your fan base grows but the real loyalty of fans takes time and you have to work harder for it but that’s what I have been seeing at this club ever since the new owners came in. I’ve never seen it just as money invested in players. That’s just part of it. I’ve seen this happening.”
He has also invested in it emotionally as club captain, “a massive honour”. “You know what,” he says. “I didn’t feel I got the captaincy by wearing the armband. As soon as I joined the club then straight away we were in a corner where punches were landed, you know? “From the minute where people talked about the investment in Man City, they were happy to criticise and you had that feeling it was us against the world. Ask me and I felt like this was my project too. I’ve not put my money into it but I’ve put my sweat and blood into it and I’m passionate about it and I want it to succeed as much as the owners want it to succeed.”
This is why Kompany is so passionately opposed to the way that Uefa has implemented its FFP rules. City were hit with a £49 million fine last year, as well as squad and transfer restrictions, for breaching the regulations. “I think there needs to be a format that people respect,” he says. “When you get into a club you need to subscribe to be in there for a number of years. You need to maybe commit to a certain number of regulations but, in this case, who are you protecting? That’s my question. If City hadn’t done what they did four of five years ago, it might have been too late [to join the elite]. What you do [with FFP] is actually protect the few who already have the things geared up to create enough revenue for them and invest more than anyone else.”
Is it the established order looking after itself? “That’s how I look at it anyway,” Kompany says. “You go into the business world and you can’t say to anyone, they cannot invest. I understand the fans have to be protected, the clubs have to be protected but plans need to be accepted. You win things; you get more fans. You get more fans; you create more revenue. That’s not a stupid way of thinking of investing in a business. “I do understand there needs to be regulation but I just wonder what is going to change at the top? When I came to England it was just four clubs at the top. Four. The same top four all the time and that’s changed now.”
There will also be a boon for England. “This is an academy that is supported to produce the best young players in the country in 10 years’ time, which will have an effect on the English national team as well,” the captain of Belgium says. “People fail to see the bigger picture. I keep going back to the amount of tax being paid by this club also. Surely that has to be good for people?”
That is the bigger picture. The immediate image is not so easy to promote. It has been a disappointing campaign for the champions. Kompany speaks of the small margins between success and failure and how he accepts that “anything but the top spot is not good enough”. But he also argues against any suggestion that either this squad lack the “mentality” to win back-to-back titles or that they are now too old. “If you are in good form and having a good season then people say, ‘Well, it’s experience that got you the trophies,’” Kompany, who turned 29 on Friday, says. “Think of the great AC Milan teams. But if we are in a period like we are now then all of a sudden it’s age that is a problem. For us, we need to think outside of it. We have been not as good as we could and that’s the bottom line. And we need to sort that.”
Kompany’s own form has been strongly questioned. “It’s very simple,” he says. “I always take myself a little bit out of the equation in the sense that when we do win titles I try to make sure I don’t think it’s all because of me. When we do have bad performances I know it’s not all because of me.” But how does he ignore the criticism? “Because I have been through everything,” Kompany says. “You know, the season when I got Barclays Premier League Player of the Year [2011-12], at the start of the season they were saying ‘the weakest part of the City team is the defence’. “Ultimately you have to accept that when the results are not there people criticise. Go through every single player in the team – which player is getting praised? None of us. It’s normal.
“Go to Argentina, they have something to say about Kun [Sergio Agüero]. Go to Belgium, they have something to say about me. Every country. David Silva they probably have something to say about him in Spain.
“We are not having the results that we need to have so we shouldn’t be hoping for people to sing our praises. We have the talent, we are fit, we are capable of turning it around and that’s all we need to concentrate on. I’ve been there and done it.
“It’s experience. There is not one bit of this experience that is not familiar to me. Don’t get emotionally involved. It’s advice to you as well.
“If someone has said you have written a s--- piece, don’t get emotionally involved. You learn. Bear in mind that everything that happens is out of proportion. You play well, you win one game and people say you are the best. I remember last year I was the best defender in the world after playing against Barcelona and then I got a red card against Hull and I was the worst within three days!”
Kompany laughs, before returning to the serious business of trying to win at Old Trafford, remarkably, for a fourth successive season. “I think it’s 50/50 going into those games and when I started playing for City it was 90/10 to them,” he says. “You knew you were going to Old Trafford and history was not good for you there. It’s different now. Every game is 50/50. Playing them at home, you never know, playing them away, you never know. It’s that kind of fixture. It means the world still. It has to be the game you look forward to.” It would also go a small way towards building a bridgehead for the rest of 2015. “It will mean everything to us if we win it,” Kompany says. “It’s a perfect opportunity for us to put a lot of it behind. But you cannot get satisfaction from a season that has slid away from you very quickly although we always have to believe in even what is impossible almost – because if that’s not in your DNA then you are doing it all wrong. I’d still like to think this is a way to kick off 2015.”
Have City failed? “If you look at this season you can say that but if you look at where we have come compared to where we have come from ... If you had been at Carrington six or seven years ago and then you come here then you know that we have not stalled. “For this season it’s a little bit of a setback because we have set high standards. But the ambitions are massive. People like myself, people you meet at the club, they will tell you how much drive there is to achieve all of this. That’s the only thing we care about. We only want to bring success to this club.
“It’s not about the walls. It’s about the people working behind the walls. I’m only going to be happy if we are always the best. It can go your way one year and then it can go the other the next year, but you have to be always ready to make that step up and go higher again. Everything you can sense here is that we regroup and we strike back.”
B\connellblue
Well-Known Member
I would rather have Vincent on a bad day than some of the Pussys that some posters think are city players. He's city through and through, not his fault that the manager can't set a team up.
halfcenturyup
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- 12 Oct 2009
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- 11,898
He always speaks well. Good interview.
mosssideblue
Well-Known Member
B\connellblue said:I would rather have Vincent on a bad day than some of the Pussys that some posters think are city players. He's city through and through, not his fault that the manager can't set a team up.
These pussies being.......................
Playing a person on a bad day because he's passionate about the club will win us nothing.