Brentford boss Thomas Frank has been speaking to the media before Sunday’s Premier League game against Chelsea (kick-off 19:00 GMT).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
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Midfielder Vitaly Janelt is back for the Bees: “Everyone from the last game should be available. Janelt should be available and involved in the squad tomorrow, so that’s positive. [Kristoffer Ajer] was on the bench so he is also ready and available to start.”
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However, Mathias Jensen and Gustavo Nunes must wait longer for their respective returns: “Mathias Jensen, unfortunately, is a couple more weeks until he is ready, so that is a bit of a blow – he’s an important player for us. Luckily, other players have been stepping up for us, like [Yehor] Yarmolyuk against Newcastle. Gustavo Nunes – the update there is that it will unfortunately be a while. He played the behind-closed-doors game against Cardiff City, and he had that stress fracture in his lower back, which hasn’t healed as well as we wanted it to.”
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Frank believes opponents Chelsea could be the best team in the Premier League at the moment: “I expect an interesting game with two good teams. They are maybe the best team in the Premier League right now. They are maybe even more in form than Liverpool, even though they are top of the league. They are playing incredible football and are well coached. [Enzo] Maresca has done a top job so far with his coaching staff and they look extremely dangerous. They have so many threats going forward and have top-quality players all over the pitch.”
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The Brentford manager confirmed that the Bees requested to move Sunday’s match because of Wednesday’s upcoming Carabao Cup trip to Newcastle: “I think 7pm is a bit odd. In general, I don’t care if we play 11am or 10am – we do what we do when it is the TV people who pay our mortgages. We asked for it because of the Carabao Cup quarter-final away to Newcastle on Wednesday and then we asked if we could move the Nottingham Forest game to the Sunday.”
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He affirmed the importance of the EFL Cup to his team: “We are proud of being in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals and we know the European sides are playing more games. It’s just how we make it fair for all clubs in the EFL Cup to have the same amount of days to rest and recover. How are the Premier League and EFL wanting us to prioritise the EFL Cup, which we want to, when they are making these sorts of decisions?”
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