Vincent Kompany believes Friday’s FA Cup third-round clash with Tottenham represents “the best possible draw” for his Burnley side.
Kompany’s team have struggled since winning promotion back to the Premier League last season, only winning three of 20 league games upon their top-flight return to sit five points adrift of safety.
They reached the FA Cup quarter-finals as a Championship outfit last campaign but were thrashed 6-0 by eventual treble winners Manchester City in the last eight, with Erling Haaland scoring a hat-trick.
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The Clarets face another daunting task on Friday, travelling to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to face a Spurs side currently six points off the Premier League summit, but Kompany is relishing the challenge.
Speaking at Thursday’s pre-match press conference, Kompany said: “To be brutally honest, it is the best possible draw.
“You can have these kinds of draws in the quarter-finals, when you have done X amount of games and you have played against League Two clubs and League One clubs.
“It is better to have the outcome of these games early, for us. Game one, if you win the game you can hope for a positive cup run and carry on.
Ready, set, Spurs 💪 pic.twitter.com/WwgSnMFllR
— Burnley FC (@BurnleyOfficial) January 3, 2024
“If you don’t win the game, then you move back to the league. I am embracing the challenge anyway, but I’m not saying it is a bad draw. It is the right draw at the right time.”
With only Sheffield United sitting below Burnley in the Premier League table, a cup run could be seen as an unnecessary distraction from the Clarets’ fight for survival, but Kompany believes Friday’s game represents a valuable test.
“I don’t make a big distinction about the fact it is an FA Cup game or a Premier League game,” he said.
“You have the opportunity to play against one of the best teams in England, which is the best league in the world, so that means a lot.
“I am treating it as an important game for us to continue measuring ourselves against these teams. That is something that is important for me.”
