Thomas Frank believes in Brentford’s automatic promotion chances despite draw

Posted Saturday, April 03, 2021 by PA

Brentford boss Thomas Frank refused to write off his club’s chances of automatic promotion following a 1-1 draw at Huddersfield.

The Bees secured a share of the spoils after Mads Bech Sorensen cancelled out Lewis O’Brien’s early first-half strike for the hosts.

But, when 28-goal striker Ivan Toney went on to rattle an upright, it meant the difference between Brentford moving to within seven points of second-placed Watford instead of nine.

The London outfit have eight games left to play and Frank insisted: “We need to keep clear heads and keep believing because there’s everything to play for. Watford will be saying nothing is over yet and that’s right because this is the Championship.

“It always feels disappointing not to get three points, but you have to handle those frustrations and move on again. It was not a top performance but one of those you will see a lot of times in a season where we performed a bit better than average and with the opportunities we had I think we did more than enough to score two goals, but we didn’t and that happens.

“We have also conceded too many odd goals this season, compared to last, not the perfect ones where you hold your hands up and say fair play. It came down to one ball in behind and miscommunication and, even though I haven’t seen it back, I’m also told we should have had a penalty for handball, so that was another thing that came down to narrow margins.”

The point moved Huddersfield eight clear of the bottom three, but home boss Carlos Corberan also refused to accept that his side are clear of danger, setting an ultra-cautious survival target of 55 points.

“We’re not safe and must fight until the end,” he declared.

“There are 24 points left for us to play for and I think we need 12 because it’s a real battle in that part of the table.”

On his team’s performance, Corberan added: “We could have avoided the way we conceded because we thought it was our throw-in, not Brentford’s, and in that confusion we did not defend it very well.

“They had other chances and hit the post but we also had chances to win and should have had a penalty, so the result was a fair one.

“We were competing and ready to go for the three points because it was the result we wanted. It was a bit more difficult for us to press in the second half after we lost (Alex) Vallejo to injury.

“We also couldn’t keep the ball like we had in the first half. We were trying to find that balance between defending well and attacking and we had more counter-attacks, but we needed to win more second balls as well.”