Thomas Frank is uneasy with congratulations for surviving. ‘I hate that word,’ he says and pulls a face. ‘What is that? We don’t want to survive. We want to thrive, develop. We want to be an asset to the Premier League.’
It is a natural aversion to negativity from one of our game’s positive thinkers, manager at one of English football’s can-do clubs but he understands the sentiment because simply by, let’s call it enduring, Brentford continue to achieve.
‘Not surviving but staying in the Premier League is a fantastic achievement,’ he tells Mail Sport as we sit in the stands of the Gtech Community Stadium and reflect on the season.Â
‘You need to respect how difficult it is. We forget. Not only media, also our fans, with the greatest respect. Even myself, I’m thinking, “We can win a cup and do more”.
‘And we do want more. We will try to develop. If we didn’t have big ambitions and dreams, we would never have achieved what we have so far and I hope we can achieve more, something bigger in the coming years.
Thomas Frank has insisted he is happy at Brentford but won’t be at the club forever
Frank is not content with simply surviving every season and is keen for his side to develop
‘But staying in the Premier League is a big part of it because Brentford in the Premier League… it shouldn’t be possible.’
Frank led the Bees up via the play-offs in 2021. They finished 13th in their debut season on 46 points and ninth on 59 points when they were expected to suffer second-season syndrome.Â
This year they came in 16th with 39 points and a hint of disappointment, even after a campaign with key players out for long periods, including England striker Ivan Toney, serving an eight-month ban for gambling offences.
The injury table compiled by the data experts at Transfermarkt has them third for most games lost to injury with 255, behind Chelsea (309) and Newcastle (258). Frank played for most of the season without his first-choice full backs and part of it with an entire back-four out.
Yet a fourth Premier League season is on the way, doubling Brentford’s top-flight existence by equalling the four seasons spent in the old Division One, which fell either side of the Second World War.
Frank, who is one of the game’s positive thinkers, has a natural aversion to negativity
Brentford secured a fourth-straight season in the top-flight after finishing 16th this season
It is only 15 years since they emerged from League Two. They are transformed under Matthew Benham’s ownership into the epitome of a modern club, leaving dear old Griffin Park in 2020.
A period of sustained success enabled by the club’s culture, according to Frank. ‘Our really secret sauce is the people,’ he says looking out from our seats high in the hushed stadium as ground staff clip the pitch, clean up around the stands after the visit of Newcastle on Sunday in the final game of the season, and start some of those jobs that have to wait until summer.
Frank’s day started with a stroll to the bakery for bread, cheese and coffee before heading to his office at the ground to tie up a few loose ends.
After our chat he will step away for a week or two and ignore his emails. Following that well-deserved downtime he will be raring to go again at a club that is always trying to move forwards.
‘Culture is made by the people,’ he adds. ‘You can have all the strategies in the world, but culture eats strategy for breakfast. Get that right and you can have good strategy as well.’
At 50, Frank has forged a reputation as an innovative leader, operating on one of the Premier League’s smallest budgets and the public face of Brentford’s data-led approach to recruitment and tactics, leading football’s fresh wave of focus on the value of set-pieces.
Frank has forged a reputation as an innovative leader and done so on a modest budget
Nicolas Jover, now in the same role at Arsenal, was coaching set-pieces at the club when Frank arrived in December 2016. More than seven years on, it is common practice to have set-piece specialists.
‘Brentford put the set-pieces on the world map,’ says Frank. ‘Last year, I thought we were the best at it in the Premier League. This year we had a drop, and you can see Arsenal have been fantastic.’
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Frank is not immune to flattery, such as a flurry of rumours last week linking the Dane to the Manchester United job.
‘We all have an ego,’ he says. ‘Mine’s not the biggest but it’s not the smallest and it’s always the ego that gets in the way of good performances and life. Also, I’m realistic in many ways. I’m enjoying my life here. This is probably the perfect football life, working in a good club in London, in the best league in the world with good players, we can compete.
‘Do we want to win titles? Yes, that would be nice but it’s not do-or-die. I still think it’s possible to win a cup and that’s the aim, to go as far as possible.
‘If a big club one day comes to knock on my door, then I need to consider it but it’s not something I’m hunting. I could stay in Brentford for… well, forever is probably a crazily long time but I could stay here for a further sustained period.
With Erik ten Hag under pressure at Manchester United, Frank has been tipped as a successor
Frank has admitted that he would potentially consider approaches from Europe’s biggest clubs
‘One day maybe I need to try something else, I don’t know. I’m more open. I’m happy here and sometimes you need to be careful what you wish for. Also, in football you can’t plan. Keep your head down, work and see where it takes you.’Â
After a long meeting with director of football Phil Giles and a short break in Spain, Frank will be back at his desk and plans for next season are in motion.
Igor Thiago, a 22-year-old Brazilian forward, was signed from Club Bruges in February in anticipation of Toney’s exit. Frank previously admitted Toney would ‘probably be sold’ this summer and that remains his feeling.
‘He’s a Brentford player right now and I’m the coach and I love to have the best players so I would love to have him in the club, but there’s a lot of rumours and he’s a very good player.’ It will be another big loss, a year after goalkeeper David Raya left for Arsenal on a loan deal which is expected to become permanent.
‘That I’m more clear on,’ says Frank. ‘He will be in Arsenal. They will be more than happy to have him, and I don’t expect anything else than they will trigger that option.’
Here is the crux of a never-ending challenge. Bright ideas will be copied and good players will be lured away, and Brentford must trust the ‘special sauce’ to work its magic.
Frank had admitted Toney would ‘probably’ leave this summer and that remains his feeling
‘We lost David and Pontus Jansson and maybe we’ll lose Ivan, that’s three,’ says Frank. ‘Maybe one more, you never know, and then guys who were big in building up the culture are gone and you have to constantly make sure that culture is strong. On the flip side, we need some fresh energy in the group.’
The demands of the Premier League, meanwhile, will not relent. With Luton, Sheffield United and Burnley replaced by Leicester, Ipswich and Leeds or Southampton, Brentford will swim among the top-flight’s minnows once again.
‘We can’t have the aim that we want to be top 10 every year,’ says Frank. ‘That’s doomed to fail because to be top 10 every year is impossible. Even if we grow our revenue, there are at least 15 teams with bigger budgets and to constantly outperform them is an impossible task.
‘That’s not to say we can’t finish 10th, ninth, eighth, whatever, sixth, 15th, 17th, 16th and then 10th again but it will go up and down depending how you hit other clubs, and when they have bad transfer windows or injuries. Look at Crystal Palace, a club I respect massively, 11 years in a row in the Premier League and never higher than 10th. We did it in the second season. Amazing.
‘Look at Burnley and Bournemouth under Sean Dyche and Eddie Howe, two coaches I admire a lot, who took them up and were there for six and five years but in the end got relegated. So when people ask me when we are established, I say it’s at least 10 years.
‘We need to aim that big because if not something will happen after four, five, six seasons. Big tests are coming.’