Frank defends his substitutions after Brentford draw

Thomas Frank defended his substitutions after a late Blackburn equaliser cost Brentford two points in a 2-2 draw.

Frank was one of the managers who wanted the five substitutes rule reintroduced and he made five changes for the second time since it has been allowed – three of them in the final 13 minutes with the Bees 2-1 up against their 10-man opponents.

He said: “If I want to do five subs again in a game like this, then yes I will.

“We played a World Cup final today. We will play 46 World Cup finals in this season, the most compact ever in the most relentless, physical league in the world.

“Our players can’t play 46 lots of 90 minutes in the season, so you have to be brave in these decisions.

“Blackburn made the same calculation when they took off (top scorer) Adam Armstrong.

“They were fortunate, but all praise to them. There is disappointment that we didn’t win, but we need to look at what we did well.”

Frank had warned before the game that Blackburn were “the best offensive side in the division” and said: “We played against a very good side. They were on top in the first 20 minutes, but after their goal, we bounced back very well, took more initiative, showed more personality and character, and after the penalty we were on top.

“After half-time, when they can regroup and adjust a few things, it is never easy playing 11 v 10 but I was very pleased with the way we handled it until we went 2-1 up.

“We didn’t play positively enough after that, but if they didn’t score then we would have won 2-1 and everyone would have been happy. We need to kill games like this off at 3-1 and we need to learn from this.”

Frank had words of praise for goalscorer Sergi Canos and also the returning Brentford fans – who were watching a match for the first time since 7 March.

He said: “Sergi was on fire today. He is one of the players that some fans love him and some don’t – depending on if we’re winning or losing!

“But he’s been out for 12 months and is still coming back from his injury. I’ve played him a lot to hopefully get him up to speed and he is in his best fitness ever in his career.

“These offensive players need that bit of confidence and hopefully that goal can give him a massive boost.”

The Bees boss added: “It was very nice to have the fans here, but it was not the full experience that it needs to be.

“When we have a sell-out or 12 or 15,000 fans here that will be the day when we can say ‘OK now we are back, now fans are back’ and it feels like it should be, and hopefully we can celebrate with them after a win.

“I was quite surprised that 2,000 fans can make that much noise – it was very, very good.”