Brentford boss Thomas Frank has been speaking to the media before Saturday’s Premier League game against Newcastle (kick-off 15:00 GMT).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
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Frank is hopeful that Christian Norgaard will be available and he is more positive about Norgaard featuring than Kristoffer Ajer, although the defender has also been training with the first team and could be involved.
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On how much of a loss Norgaard was against Aston Villa: “You always want your best players on the pitch and he is one of our best players. He has been one of the most consistent performers over the past five years. Of course we’d have loved him to be on the pitch, but I trust the players who played last night and we’ve won games without Christian before.”
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On the Villa defeat: “Looking back at the game, on the way home and this morning, [I’m] more positive. I think we played 20 good, solid minutes, then we lose the game in 40 minutes.”
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He added: “In many ways, top actions from them, they created three goals where, yes, there are things we can do better. We’re talking the smallest of details we could have done differently. In the Premier League, most of the time you need to play 90 good minutes but we didn’t.”
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The Bees boss said they have “big expectations and big beliefs” and that is why it “hurts” when they lose. He said: “We thought we could do something [on Wednesday], unfortunately we couldn’t. We’ve showed many times we can play against any team in this division and go toe-to-toe. We didn’t do that yesterday.”
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Frank praised Newcastle’s recent form: “They were brilliant at home to Arsenal, they were brilliant on Wednesday at home to Liverpool, they were very good away to Chelsea – they were unlucky not to get something out of that game – at home to West Ham, they absolutely dominated them.”
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He added: “I think it’s an Eddie Howe team that is at its best and it will be a big test for us. This will be the biggest test that we have faced at home so far this season.”
