‘On-fire’ Mbeumo will play for bigger club – Frank

Thomas Frank believes there is still more to come from Bryan Mbeumo after the forward made it five goals in six matches to start the new season.

Mbeumo gave Brentford the lead in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with West Ham with an excellent volleyed finish less than a minute into the game.

The Cameroon international missed three months of last season with an ankle injury and Frank is delighted to have him fit and firing at the start of the current campaign.

“There is always room for improvement, but he’s on fire,” said the Bees head coach.

“Last year he was on track to score 15 goals and get 12 assists or something like that but got injured in December.

“He was the biggest miss last year even when we had Ivan [Toney] out. We missed our key player.

“He’s added another layer this year. Five goals in six is incredible plus he’s still creating chances and opportunities. He’s working so hard for the team.

“For me, he’s a top player. I’m convinced one day he will play for a bigger club; I will definitely buy him if I was at a bigger club.

“He’s very happy here. Maybe some players need to leave us one day, but a lot of the players here are very happy because we have a top environment with good people, staff and players.”

Mbeumo’s latest goal saw Brentford make history, as they became the first Premier League team to score within the first minute in three consecutive matches.

They found the net within the first 30 seconds in defeats against Manchester City and Tottenham, and Frank put the fast starts down to the work of his coaching team.

He said: “Of course there is planning to it, we have a kick-off strategy and we tweak it from game to game.

“We train on it, and as a philosophy we like to keep it (the ball) up there and straight away get on the front foot and be positive.

“Not playing backwards but [trying to] produce a cross and land on the second ball then try to score and that is exactly what we have done in all three games.

“Of course there are margins going our way, but I want to give credit to the coaching staff and the players.”

Frank confirmed that Kevin Schade was taken off in the second half of the game due to cramp, and is confident Christian Norgaard will return next week against Wolves after missing out against West Ham.