Frank hails Janelt after superb Brentford victory

Vitaly Janelt is playing so well for Brentford the absence of key midfielder Christian Norgaard is not being noticed, according to boss Thomas Frank.

Janelt turned in a man-of-the-match display in the Bees’ 3-1 win at Nottingham Forest, breaking up home attacks, setting the Bees going forward, winning tackles and generally dominating the match.

“I think they call him in German ‘Da Machine’,” Frank said.

“He is top. What a player, what a mentality, works so hard, good on the ball, exactly what I want from a number six, the way I want to play.

“He just helps the team massively when we have maybe the best six in the league out – Christian Norgaard, it seems like we’re not missing him.”

The victory, which followed disappointing home draws against Blackburn and Derby, stretched Brentford’s unbeaten run to 11 matches, which Frank said “is pretty good in this league”.

The Bees were comfortable in the first half at the City Ground and led 1-0 at the break, but Forest rallied at the start of the second half before Brentford’s second goal switched things back in their favour.

“I think that’s the first time in a while that after we’ve taken the lead, a team has put a bit of pressure on us,” said Frank.

“It was about the first 10-15 minutes of the second half – it felt longer – and we couldn’t really get out of it, although for five or seven minutes before the 2-0 goal, we just got past the worst of the storm.

“But this is the Championship, you can’t just dominate all games throughout 90 minutes.

“Our first goal was a very good offensive set-piece, the second one we just know that Josh Dasilva in those positions, even though everyone knows what he is going to do, and it was good to get him back with a goal, And the last one just shows why Ivan Toney has scored 15 goals this season.”

Max Haygarth became the latest B team player to make his first-team debut

“It’s nice to have the possibility to do that,” said Frank.