Bees ‘in a good place’ ahead of vital spell – Frank

Brentford manager Thomas Frank is relishing Tuesday’s game at Watford, which is the start of his side’s toughest spell of the season so far.

Five of the Bees’ next six Championship games are against clubs in the top seven with them.


And this run will be a good indicator of Brentford’s promotion chances, given that Frank’s team has hardly played any of the other leading contenders yet.

All of Brentford’s eight league wins have come against sides who are currently 11th or below in the table, with five of them in the bottom seven.

The Bees have only met two other promotion-chasing clubs so far – Norwich and Swansea – both at home, and each time they took the lead, only for their visitors to snatch a late equaliser.

After travelling the short distance to Vicarage Road, the sequence continues at home to Reading on Saturday.

Brentford are then at in-form Cardiff on Boxing Day, before back-to-back home games against Bournemouth and Bristol City, and then the return game at Reading in mid-January.

Throw in the club’s first-ever League Cup quarter-final against Newcastle on Tuesday week and an FA Cup third round tie with Middlesbrough in early January, and there is no respite in the packed schedule.

Frank, though, refuses to think any further ahead than the clash with Watford.

He said: “We need to take them one game at a time.

“I am really looking forward to the Watford game on Tuesday night. For the neutral football fan or watcher, I hope it’ll be a top game between two teams that want to dominate and want to control the game.”

Brentford go into the Watford fixture on an 11-game unbeaten run and top of the Championship’s current six-match form table.

“My team should be high on confidence at the moment,” Frank added. “We are in a good place, but we need to keep going, it’s relentless.”