Nedum Onuoha has revealed that opponents disliked Vincent Kompany due to his aggressive approach on the pitch.
Oleksandr Zinchenko labelled the retired defender as an “absolute animal”, recalling how he would make crunching tackles even in training after returning from injury instead of trying to protect himself.
Kompany was well and truly an old-school centre-half in many ways, especially in terms of how full-throttle he was in terms of his challenges and front-footed style of defending.
Nedum Onuoha says opponents “hated” Vincent Kompany due to how aggressive he was
While the Belgian is renowned for how intelligent of a defender he was, what also stood out about his game is how he was always up for a battle.
Often, old-school centre-backs would put in a cynical challenge on a forward just to remind them that they are ready to lock horns with them and the four-time Premier League winner would often do that.
Nedum Onuoha has revealed that his former Manchester City teammate Vincent Kompany was so aggressive that opponents disliked him.
“The one that stood out to me the most was Vincent Kompany. So, his approach on the field was relentless and he would get to a point where certain people he used to be playing against, they hated him because he was just on it all the time”, he said on BBC’s Planet Premier League podcast.
Vincent Kompany behaved like centre-backs should
In our view, it is nice to hear from Nedum Onuoha that Vincent Kompany was disliked by opposing players due to his approach.
A centre-back should be able to get into a forward’s head and one way of doing so is by being extremely aggressive in their approach.
Or developing a fear factor around them, as Kompany did during his playing days to put even some of the best strikers off their game.
Ultimately, elite centre-backs like Vincent Kompany should not particularly be liked by their opponents and instead, the feeling should be that facing them is bound to be a nightmare.
Central defenders that have such a reputation often tend to put attackers off their game even before the game has begun, with names such as Carles Puyol and Giorgio Chiellini springing to mind.
Vincent Kompany was no different and that is one of the many reasons why he was one of the best of the best.