Frank happy with squad despite Bees youngster’s late call-up

Thomas Frank says he is happy with the size of Brentford’s squad despite a mini-injury crisis leading to a B team player, who had played on Tuesday morning, being named among the first-team substitutes against Swansea on the same evening.

Full-back Fin Stevens was on the bench only hours after playing 75 minutes for the B team against Leicester Under-23s earlier in the day.

The Bees have first-teamers Christian Norgaard, Pontus Jansson, Shandon Baptiste and Mads Roerslev all out injured and Jan Zamburek, Luka Racic, Jaakko Oksanen and Arthur Read out on loan.

In addition, Mads Bech Sorensen, who played in the previous three league games, picked up an injury in training on Monday, leaving the Bees with no other fit senior players available.

Frank said: “With players like Jan and Luca you need to take a decision.

“Either we believe that a squad of 20 is enough and normally it is and we invest in their future. They get valuable minutes and hopefully they come back and be very good for us.

“We have a good squad and have been a little bit unlucky with injuries. Christian was very unlucky landing on his ankle. Mads Bech was also unlucky but we hope he could be available for Saturday.

“Shandon was a bit more unlucky and his injury was fatigue which you would maybe think would happen later in the season.

“I think we will be looking much better after the international break.”

Stevens was not needed during the 1-1 draw against the Swans – a result which Frank thought was “fair”.

He said: “We played against a very good team – it was a good and interesting game between two good teams who wanted to dominate and take control of the game. Both sides had their spells in the game where they were on top.

“The first half was very even but in the second half I don’t think we hit a particularly high level, although I don’t think Swansea did either – it was very much back and forth.

“I didn’t think we were in control, but don’t think they had a real chance. Then we had the Henrik Dalsgaard header which could have killed it, then they had their big chance and then their goal.

“Then both teams tried to go for the win, which I like to see, so it was a fair result. Of course, when you are leading 1-0 then you prefer to win, but it was fair.”

However, Swansea manager Steve Cooper thought his side had done more than enough to take all three points.

“I am disappointed with the result, but not our performance,” he said. “We were miles the better team and I don’t think Freddie (Woodman) has had a save to make.

“We made Brentford look second best today comfortably and I think this will end up being a really important point for them probably.”