‘SHOW NO FEAR’ SAYS KOMPANY AHEAD OF BLADES CLASH

Clarets boss looks ahead to Saturday’s visit to Yorkshire

Manager Vincent Kompany insists his side must ‘attack the game and show no fear’ when Burnley travel to Sheffield United on Saturday afternoon at Bramall Lane.

The Clarets head to South Yorkshire this weekend in good form after losing just one game in the last six Premier League fixtures, following a victory over Brentford and draws with West Ham, Chelsea, Wolves and Everton.

Kompany knows United will pose a challenging test and believes it has a ‘cup final’ feeling surrounding it, but says his side have nothing to lose ahead of the encounter with Chris Wilder’s team.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, the Burnley boss said: “Sheffield is another different game for us, it has a bit of a cup final feeling to it as well. We know we have to go there, attack the game and show no fear.

“They’ve (Sheffield United) always been a tough team to play, we played them last year and this year and we have had some really good games against each other.

“We’re both in the Premier League for a reason. They have a strong team with players that can make the difference in games which showed last season too.

“Going there on Saturday, we have nothing to lose. We approach it with no fear, we have to show our strengths and go there to play our hearts out & run our socks off. We’re playing to be in the Premier League and that’s our goal.”

Kompany added: “It’s about carrying the energy from the last few games into this one and see if we can force our own luck as well, hopefully on the day the luck can be on our side.

“Full focus for us is on Sheffield and that’s it. It’s a must win game for us, well for both teams. We’re not the only teams in the league that need wins.”

The two teams last met in December when the Clarets ran out convincing winners in a 5-0 win at Turf Moor and Kompany believes his team have made ‘good progress’ since the reverse fixture.

“There’s a natural adaptation to how the Premier League operates and over 30 games there’s good progress, but there’s even more to make, to finish games off when we have the chance.

“Between now and the start of the season, we have added three valuable additions, recovered some injured players and the truth is we have been in most games for a while.

“We’ve had to adapt a few things and we have had a couple of off days and results, but there has been progress for us across the course of the season.

“The biggest thing for us is not getting results we think we could get and decision making in the final third of games, but a lot of matches recently have been on a knife edge and it’s just about rewarding our performances with results.”