Frank hails Brentford’s ‘great mentality’ after victory over Wolves
Thomas Frank praised the mentality of his Brentford side after they finally made the most of taking an early lead in their 5-3 win against Wolves.
Nathan Collins put the Bees ahead after just 75 seconds, following on from them going a goal up within a minute in their past three league games.
Frank’s side only earned a point from those three games but overcame an end-to-end first half to register a third home league win of the season from four matches.
“It’s a crazy story,” said Frank when asked about the early goals. “We’ve been joking about it, but it’s easier to joke when you’re on top of things and you win the game.
“We’ve been practicing coin tosses all week and clearly Norgaard didn’t do well enough so it took a little bit longer this time [after Wolves kicked off the game].
“It’s fantastic, there’s a great mentality in the group. If you look at us over the last four seasons in the Premier League, we always have goals in the team no matter who is playing.
“Part of that is we want to play forward as quickly as possible. We like to have more control, but if we can get it to the side [of the pitch] and produce a run and produce a cross, then that’s what we do.
“More impressive was the 3-2 goal after kick off. That was probably a sucker punch to Wolves that one.
“We’re working very hard on it. I think we lose the ball 2 or 3 times so it’s about the positioning and the counter pressing and how we work from there. So some of it also a bit of what we want to do in open play.
“But the mindset now – which is a big thing as well – we don’t want to play it back and make a few passes, we want to get the ball up there and see if we can create something and change the momentum.”
Although Brentford’s approach to kick-offs proved productive once again in this latest win, it was from corners that they threatened most regularly.
The Bees earned a penalty from one set-piece when Mario Lemina tangled with Collins and Ethan Pinnock also found the net from a corner in first-half injury time.
Former set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva left the club in the summer to join Chelsea and has been replaced by Keith Andrews, and Pinnock’s goal was the first scored from a corner or free-kick since the change.
“We looked extremely dangerous on set pieces in general and I’m very happy with that because in the last game we were not,” said Frank.
“That was a big, big thing for us. We need to come back to our normal strength on set-pieces and today we were very strong.
“Ethan’s goal was a clearly worked routine so big credit to Keith Andrews and the players.
“It always helps when the culture in the club is good towards set-pieces from the players and staff, and then it’s up to Keith to add layers.”
