Frank hails recovery after Brentford’s ‘worst 40 minutes’

Thomas Frank praised the mentality of his Brentford players after they recovered from two goals down to beat struggling Ipswich Town.

Brentford conceded twice in the space of three first-half minutes at but came from behind to take the lead thanks to strikes from Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo and an own goal from Ipswich defender Harry Clarke.

Subsitute Liam Delap looked to have rescued a point for Kieran McKenna’s winless side but Mbeumo found the net again in the 96th minute.

“I’ve been told we are in the entertainment business so I thought we had to give you all a bit for your money,” Frank joked.

The Bees boss added: “It’s easier to be on the end of the win than being Kieran. He is working as hard as me and maybe even harder in their first year in the Premier League.

“I think they did very well. He set them up well and for the first 40 minutes I think they were better than us and deservedly were up 2-0.

“On the flip side, I thought we were bad. It was 40 of our worst minutes in the Premier League if I’m honest.

“But great mentality and personality. Football is relentless, particularly in the Premier League.

“There was one action that sparked everything and that came from Keane Lewis-Potter.

“I praised him at half-time [for] the action and the turn inside, running through three players and perfectly sliding a pass to Vitaly and boom… 2-1 and suddenly a little belief.

“Second half I thought we were by far the better team and deservedly win the game in the end.

“It’s a big part of our strategy to put crosses in the box and put a lot of players in the box and when you do that you have a bigger and bigger possibility of scoring from a marginal situation.”

Mbeumo scored his seventh and eighth goals of the season to hand Brentford the win but Frank was keen to point out the impact of his team-mates as well.

Lewis-Potter played a crucial role, winning a penalty from Clarke while also being fouled twice by the defender to earn him two yellow cards by the 70th minute.

Frank said: “Eight goals in nine games [for Mbeumo] is impressive from a winger from a team in the middle of the Premier League. It does not normally happen.

“Big credit to Bryan but the way we play with the principles and attacking mindset, we score quite a few goals.

“In all the seasons in the Premier League we have scored more goals than you’d expect from a mid-table team.

“We created three top scorers in the Championship (Neal Maupay, Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney) and we created Ivan Toney scoring 20 goals in the Premier League. Hopefully Bryan is on track for that.”