Vincent Kompany praised Jay Rodriguez after the striker who “bleeds for the club” moved Burnley up to fourth in the Sky Bet Championship with the winner against Bristol City at Turf Moor.
Local boy Rodriguez’s fifth goal of the season extended the Clarets’ unbeaten run in all competitions to eight games and came against the club he made his debut for Burnley 15 years ago.
Manuel Benson’s fourth-minute goal – his first for the club following his summer move from Royal Antwerp – had given the home side a flying start.
But it was cancelled out by Nahki Wells’ close-range equaliser after 27 minutes and for a while it looked as if Burnley would be held to their sixth draw of the season by the visitors who defended resolutely and threatened on the break.
But Rodriguez made sure of the three points – the Clarets’ fourth league win of the season – when he headed home from substitute Joey Gudmundsson’s cross in the 67th minute.
Kompany said: “I’m happy. It was a good performance and a good win. I’ve seen a lot of Bristol City’s games this season and I knew it would be as tricky game. But we go into the international break with exactly what we wanted.
“We are extremely fortunate to have Jay Rod in this team – for many reasons. One is the obvious quality he shows but he is a local lad – he bleeds for this club. We knew if we can keep him fit and happy he is going to be a big player for us and he showed that today.”
For the second game running Burnley conceded from a corner, but Kompany claimed there should have been an offside decision before the corner was awarded.
He added: “We think it was offside. The Championship is a league of set-pieces – 50 per cent of the goals scored are from set-pieces.
“Whenever the ball goes out for a corner or for a wide free-kick you know it is something you have to deal with. We have dealt with most of them but we will have to look back at this one. We have played 10 games and we’ve done as well as anyone in dealing with set-pieces.
“We’re happy after 10 games because when you look back at the situation of the squad at the start of the season there was a lot of uncertainty and today there is music in this team and that is what we need to maintain.
“There is is a lot of progression that can still be made too.”
City manager Nigel Pearson was encouraged by the way his team have performed in back-to-back away defeats to two clubs relegated from the Premier League last season – this narrow defeat followed a 3-2 setback at Norwich in midweek.
He said: “We’ve had our chances but they are a decent side. They have had plenty of possession. The goals that we conceded we could have done better with both.
“But we have measured ourselves this week against two sides who have recently been in the Premier League and we’ve been competitive. The players have given a good account of themselves this week. Their application has been very good, so I don’t have complaints.
“I have to be realistic about where we are. It illustrates the difficulties that teams can have to be consistently good in the Championship. It is a tough league. But I know we are in a decent place and we create chances.
“We are averaging 1.4 points a game, which I suppose is a big improvement on where we’ve been, but we’re probably a bit disappointed.
“All the games we have lost have been pretty tight affairs. We are capable of making further improvements which will give us a realistic chance of being competitive this season.”
