‘Enjoy every minute’, Frank tells Bees players

Thomas Frank told his Brentford players to appreciate every moment of their careers, after seeing Blackburn’s Bradley Dack suffer a potentially long-term knee injury in the Bees’ 1-0 win at Ewood Park.

Dack, who only returned from a year-long absence with another knee injury last Christmas, was hurt in a challenge with his former Rovers team-mate David Raya late in the game.

The midfielder caught the Brentford goalkeeper unawares as he came back on to the pitch when Raya put the ball on the ground to kick it clear.

And as the pair challenged for the ball, Dack went down and was eventually stretchered off, with Blackburn boss Tony Mowbray saying the player may have a cruciate knee ligament injury.

Frank said: “First and foremost it is tragic that Dack is potentially out with a big injury.

“I just said that to my players. We don’t know, but it looked bad and that is his second potentially big knee injury – so they need to enjoy every single minute that they play and when they train at football, because that is what can happen. All my thoughts are going to Dack.”

Looking at the hard-earned victory, which put Brentford back in second above Watford and Swansea going into Saturday’s games, Frank said: “It was a very beautiful ugly win in very difficult circumstances, with the pouring rain and an unbelievably difficult pitch to play on.

“I think we were really good in the first half and we decided to go longer on purpose because Blackburn are a good pressing team and there was too big an opportunity to lose the ball – too big a risk.

“In the second half, I thought we defended really well and gave one chance away in the whole game, but I would have loved us to have kept the ball a bit better in their half in sequences.”

The Bees boss added: “It’s nice to look at the [league] table, but it doesn’t help us with anything. When we analyse this game, I will look back on our defensive mindset, which I think is the thing we have lacked a bit consistently. We showed that togetherness that when it’s not beautiful, we can get the scrappy win, which you need to do in this league.”

Another bonus for Brentford was defensive midfielder Christian Norgaard making his first start since early October.

“I’m very pleased,” said Frank. “You could see what he was bringing. He was there when the second ball ends, he can play football and every single time he had a chance, he would play the ball forward, so that was a massive thing for me and it’s a big thing to get him back.”