Frank hails in-form duo after Bees triumph

Thomas Frank hailed Brentford striking duo Ivan Toney and Marcus Forss after they added to their goal tallies in the 3-0 win at Luton.

Toney scored his ninth goal of the season before half-time and then a minute after he was substituted by Forss, the Finn hit his sixth goal of the campaign with his first touch of the match.

“We need two good strikers,” Frank said. “The way they are also encouraging each other is fantastic and it just shows the togetherness in the squad.

“Ivan is growing and his goals are of course the talking point, but for me goals is one thing. They are hugely important and it’s massive that he has scored nine goals in nine games. This one was another beauty because I love the tap-ins, then it means we have done a fantastic play beforehand!

“But in terms of his link-up of the play and his workrate and the pressure, he is getting better and better on that and getting fitter and fitter so I’m really pleased with him as well.

“If I was to ask Marcus if he wants to start instead of Ivan, then of course he wants to, but he understands. You can really see the work ethic he is putting into every single day is magnificent and he’s just been going from two years ago to now in terms of personal development. So first man in, last man walking out.

“You can see when he comes in, he’s just pressing like a beast and keeps running for the team then he knows he will score, because he knows if he presses and arrives in the right zones then the last couple of years we have been pretty good at developing strikers.”

Frank was also delighted with his side’s display, which was their best of the season so far.

“I was very pleased with the performance, so the good thing is that we now put pressure on ourselves to put in another good performance against Swansea on Tuesday,” he said. “We are only looking ahead to the next game but this has to be our standard.

“Even before we were 1-0 up, and the first half was more even to be fair, I had a feeling you could sense that we were on top of the game, but the way we pressed I would say was the key to winning the game.

“The way the front three kept pressing forward, the way the midfield three kept pushing forward and the way the way the back four kept pushing all the way up to the halfway line – you don’t see many teams in this division doing that.

“We kept that intensity and took the long play out of Luton today, because it was difficult for them to play for the second ball and to play behind us. We also stopped the crosses so that was key for me.

“But we also need against teams like this to be extremely good on the ball and play with personality, which we did. We gave a half-chance away on a set-piece and if you do that, you are doing a good job against a good side.”