Frank hails hat-trick hero Schade after Bees victory
Thomas Frank praised Kevin Schade for his hard work on the training pitch after the forward scored a hat-trick in Brentford’s 4-1 win against Leicester City.
Schade, who also set up Yoane Wissa’s equaliser, was making his first Premier League start since in over a month, with head coach Frank explaining he felt the 23-year-old would thrive against the Foxes.
He said: “I celebrated a lot when he scored his first goal. I know how hard it’s been for him to not score goals and coming back from injury last year as well.
“He started this season well. Getting on the end of a lot of chances, couldn’t score but now he’s scored three goals and got a fantastic assist. What a threat! What a handful!
“Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo have been on fire but we start another player and he scores a hat-trick, so right now we’re in the kind of momentum where it drops our way offensively.
“I don’t think many thought I would change Kevin for Vitaly (Yanelt) today, that was very offensive.
“I thought that we needed one more [player] to get into the box and run behind and be a threat on the last line in this game, and I’m very happy that it paid off and mostly happy for Kevin.
“When you get on the end of chance and are getting in the right positions, that’s the most difficult thing. The second-most difficult thing is to get the ball into the back of the net.
“I think he’s trained well. He’s worked hard on his finishes. He worked on Thursday with Justin Cochrane, one of our coaches, on the chip with his left foot over the keeper [that brought about his second goal vs Leicester].
“It’s a good example of how he’s been working and the coaches have been working with him.”
Brentford have now won six of their seven home games this season, and this most recent victory was the most straightforward yet.
Despite falling behind when Jamie Vardy robbed Ethan Pinnock of possession to set up Facundo Bounanotte, the Bees responded in style as they drew level through Wissa and Schade then struck twice before half-time.
Schade rounded off his hat-trick in the second half when he latched on to a Nathan Collins pass before slotting home.
Frank said: “Very good performance, maybe the best this season. We were in control and dominated from minute one until the end of the game.
“We didn’t know what we’d face from Leicester but we expected it to be much more difficult than I think it looked in the end.
“Going 1-0 down, even though we were completely dominant, we just kept going, fantastic bounce back mentality.
“We scored four top goals. All of them were incredible. We looked so dangerous when we went forward and there were a lot of very good performances.”
