'Really simple': Vincent Kompany refusing to set Burnley points target for final run-in

The Clarets head to Goodison Park on Saturday for a huge encounter down at the bottom end of the Premier League table.

Sean Dyche’s men currently sit seven points higher up the table, but Nottingham Forest – the side that currently occupy 17th place – are six points away.

What that all means is that Burnley know they must realistically win in Merseyside on Saturday to give themselves a fighting chance of staving off relegation.

Rather than get drawn into a debate over how many points Burnley might require, Kompany is opting to focus on the here and now.

“Try and win as many as you can. I keep it really simple,” he said.

“You over-complicate with all the maths and stuff, so if we just focus on winning the next game and if we do that consistently, then that’s the only thing…

“It’s a mindset you hear now and you might think it’s cliche, but because we’ve experienced it in two seasons at two very different ends of the league, it's still very much the same mindset.”

Despite claiming a creditable draw in midweek, the gap to safety grew to six points as a result of Nottingham Forest’s win over Fulham.

When asked if that was a major source of frustration, Kompany said: “No. Frustration is the day of the game, maybe sometimes. The day after? No chance, you move on, it’s done.

“I might be a little bit different, but everybody has this habit of thinking everything stops after these next seven games or whatever. We don’t.

“After the next seven games, it’s not like we go home, sit on the beach and never come back. It’s just a continuation.

“What I’m trying to say with this is, the frustration can’t persist for too long. You have to move on. Everything that lies ahead, that’s all that matters.

“For us, we have all the confidence to go into every single game we have to play this season and also after this season. It’s really important the mindset goes past ‘we’ve had a setback and it’s the end of the world’. I don’t function that way.”