Brentford Head Coach, Thomas Frank has revealed that he is keen to build upon a successful season at the club.
Frank’s Bees finished ninth in the Premier League and narrowly missed out on European qualification on the final day of the season, amidst early exits in both domestic cup competitions.
Frank though is eager for his team to continue their progress into next season and build upon the positives of this campaign, which saw a continuation of their revamped playing style – having previously played a successful possession-based style in the Championship.
The Danish manager therefore wants to see his team adopt a “more pragmatic” style next season in which they are still “dominant on the ball”, having already developed their abilities to deliver early crosses from ideal positions and play balls in at the correct timing.
Frank proceeded to iterate that the principals and values of his team’s philosophy at present is to play “aggressive and front-footed” football.
He went on to explain that there are conversations within training about maxmising their end product, as Frank commented: “We’re doing that because we are talking and training a lot about making each chance bigger.
“Playing in front, in front, in front, in front is nice, but where is the breakthrough? That, merged together with having more passes in the right areas, is the way we are going.
“We would like to add that layer to really be aware of Brentford 1.0 when going towards Brentford 2.0.”
On his team’s progressive development, Frank urged critics to consider the basics, as he added: “People sometimes can be drawn towards how we need to develop, but let’s remember our foundations. Let’s remember what we’re really good at, keep that, and then add layers. That’s what it’s about.”
The 49 year-old Dane went on to praise ex Denmark manager – Morten Olsen, who inspired his “tiki-taka and possession-based” playing style, having always been more interested in “the offensive part of football” than the defensive aspect.
Summing up Olsen’s impact upon himself, Frank said: “He was very ahead of his time, the way he set up the national team and Ajax when he was there. He was a big inspiration, in terms of playing with wide wingers, playing with no.9s and no.10s that are flexible – I just thought, ‘Wow’.
“I had an Under-15 team at that time and just completely copy and pasted it! I then became the youth national team coach for Denmark for five years and that was our style of play. It was very possession-based and tiki-taka.”
Frank proceeded to take aim at critics of his time at Brondby between June 2013 – March 2016 as he iterated that he also ensured that his players “pressed hard” and were organised in their set piece play.
One of Brentford’s main qualities of their play has been their “aggressive high pressure” with the right attitude of “the mindset, the ability, the braveness and the front-footedness from the players to do that every game,” to achieve the best result possible.
Frank also praised his team for their ability to have an alternate plan depending on how the match unfolded, as he added: “Another big thing is, when we’ve been down, we have the Plan B where we’ve been offensively minded and had a lot of offensive players on the pitch, especially against good teams.
“It made me think, ‘Wow, that can actually really happen, it works’, so I also liked that.”
This season also saw Brentford become the only team to do the league double over eventual champions, Manchester City who have recently won the FA Cup and are now on course for a treble – providing that they beat Inter Milan in the Champions League Final on 10 June.
“We’ve found a way that is difficult to play against,” explained Frank on how his team managed to beat Man City twice, as he continued: “We you know that if we go toe-to-toe with them, it will definitely minimise our chances to win.
“Now we go toe-to-toe in a different way that is a bit more defensive but, hey, you’re playing against six of the best teams in the world.”
Frank also stated that his Bees entered every match with a belief that they could win, especially ahead of November’s win at the Etihad Stadium, as he added: “We believed we could go to the Etihad and win.
“If you asked the players after the tactical meeting and then days leading up towards that game, they believed we can win.
“We knew it would be unbelievably difficult, they’d be huge favourites, but we believed we could win.”
Ivan Toney scored twice that day but is now banned until mid-January 2024 due to breaches of FA Betting rules, which many see as a blow given that he is their top goalscorer with 21 goals this season.
Frank however is unfazed by Toney’s absence, as he commented: “I don’t think we have to change at all, almost. It’ll just be tweaks.
“If you want that longer solution, goal kicks, for example, we have to find a different way.
“But, in open play, the pressing is the same, whether that’s Ivan, Yoane [Wissa] or Kevin [Schade]. The build-up is also the same, more or less, if we want to play in behind.”
Frank also iterated that Toney isn’t the main focal point of the team, as he continued: “We never really played for Ivan.
“A narrative has been created because we do that sometimes against the top six, but that’s only 12 games; there are 26 games left that we definitely don’t do it as much – that’s not the plan.
“So the build-up is more or less the same, it’s only the little tweaks with the longer solutions sometimes.”
Looking ahead to next season, Frank has refused to set early targets but made it clear that next season will be “definitely about adding layers, to keep improving, to keep doing the best we can.”
Frank has also had “five-minute chats” with individual players ahead of the summer break, in which he made it clear that he wants those players “to come back even stronger and play an even more important role next year’.”
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