Brentford's Frank on their agonising late 2-1 defeat to Manchester United
Brentford boss Thomas Frank on their agonising late 2-1 defeat to Manchester United as they conceded twice in stoppage time to lose
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00:00 [CHATTER]
00:03 [CHATTER]
00:09 Yes.
00:15 Thomas, was that an unfair result?
00:18 Yeah, I think it was.
00:20 When you're leading 1-0 into three minutes injury time and then lose, I think that's unfair.
00:29 I think if we were winning there, I think you all would say, "Well done."
00:36 Top game for Brentford, deserved win.
00:40 When they equalised, probably could say, "OK, 1-1 probably fair, but when you lead that long...
00:47 "Fair" what do you call it? "But when you lead that long, OK,
00:50 "but we want to pressure second half and then create a lot of shots."
00:53 Should never lose, of course.
00:55 I think that we played close to a perfect first half.
01:01 Very aggressive in the high pressure, very brave on the ball, good on the counters, defended well.
01:10 I think it was a well-deserved 1-0 lead at first half.
01:14 Second half we get more under pressure, of course,
01:16 we're playing against Man Utd at Old Trafford and they have to win.
01:21 So, preferred us to have a little bit more faces on the ball,
01:25 a little bit able to go more under high pressure.
01:27 But overall good.
01:30 I think we gave nothing away until they scored where the ball,
01:35 the cutback back, I think Christian Urquhart is this close to touch it
01:40 and then it will drop to our striker and then it will never be a shot.
01:43 And then it's a flipper, bounce in there and then they score.
01:47 So, I think I know when it's good for the managers, I'm happy for Erik that they won.
01:58 But of course not happy for myself that we didn't win.
02:01 Because I think he would probably have faced a pretty brutal room if he lost.
02:07 But if you ask me what I wanted, I of course wanted to win.
02:14 But when you're on this end, of course it's brutal,
02:17 but hey, it's football, it happens, we need to go again.
02:20 Are they the hardest defeats to take as a manager?
02:24 You come away to one of the big boys, you are so good and so comfortable for 90 minutes
02:29 and then literally that happens?
02:32 Yeah, it's basically the way it happens.
02:34 If they scored 80th minute and 87, still would have been disappointed,
02:39 but conceded two goals in the last three minutes
02:41 and probably on the last kick of the game.
02:43 1-1 probably still would have been devastated,
02:47 but at least we got something out of the hard work.
02:51 So, yeah, it's tough, but hey, that happens.
02:55 I think there's people in the world that are in worse situations than we are.
03:02 I think it's important to put it in that perspective sometimes.
03:05 But right now, of course, I'm very, very irritated.
03:09 But 24 hours, that's what I always say, can be disappointing,
03:13 and 24 hours, be happy, then we need to go again.
03:16 First of all, they went long, the Uniteds, throughout the game.
03:20 Obviously you played out in the press quite a bit.
03:23 Did you always feel that you could do that to them?
03:26 Because they didn't have a lot of shape to their play.
03:29 Both things, press them and play out.
03:32 Yes, that was a bit of the game plan.
03:38 I think most teams know that we press high when we can,
03:42 and we go man-man, and I think we are very, very good at it,
03:45 and we are very, very brave.
03:46 There's not many that does that.
03:49 And then we knew that there could be a possibility,
03:52 the way they pressed from my perspective, that we could play out.
03:56 That's why we did it.
03:57 Do you focus on the 93 extra minutes, or 92 extra minutes,
04:02 or do you say to the team, "Actually, the four minutes is really disappointing"?
04:09 I know when we will look back at it, I will 100% be positive.
04:14 Of course, we always look into the goal we concede.
04:18 And it seems like we constantly concede in different ways.
04:25 It's not like, "OK, we can't defend crosses, or we can't defend set-pieces,
04:28 or we can't defend counters."
04:29 It's like some strange goals we concede.
04:35 So I will take the positive out, but of course we need to look into
04:39 why we are not getting out on the winning end.
04:42 But I think it is margins, it is a little bit of the drop of the ball sometimes.
04:49 Just given the form at the moment, do you take that and say,
04:54 "OK, we can put a 90-minute together like that"?
04:57 100%. That is the thing we will focus on.
05:00 We played eight Premier League games,
05:02 seven of them have been good or very good in the performances.
05:06 We know there is only one way out of it,
05:09 which is to keep producing those performances, adjust to small details,
05:12 so we either can't get the clean sheet, or only concede one, or whatever,
05:16 and then score two goals.
05:17 All those details we are focusing on, and then we know it will turn around.
05:23 Is it possible when you come to a stadium like this,
05:28 or any of the grounds with a really intense atmosphere,
05:31 when you concede the first goal, to keep shape?
05:36 Or is it just like you're standing on the touchline
05:39 hoping that you don't concede another because you know what's coming up?
05:44 Yeah, of course you hope that.
05:47 I think we are OK in that period.
05:53 It's the last kick of the ball, it's a ball that drops for us,
05:56 it's not like they produced two chances or whatever.
05:59 But of course I know they got just the boost, and we just get the punch.
06:04 So I think any other day would at least have been a draw,
06:10 then I would have been a tiny bit more happy, still disappointed.
06:14 Hi, Thomas. So close to victory there, I think that's now six games without a win.
06:19 What have you told everybody in the dressing room?
06:21 Today I think the way we lost there was not too much to say,
06:28 because there's too many emotions, no-one will listen, everyone is devastated.
06:33 So I said a lot of things went right.
06:39 Of course we can't lose the game, it happens, control your emotions.
06:43 Good luck to the international guys.
06:45 Well, that was going to be my next question, two weeks now until the next game.
06:48 Is that a good thing, because you've got two weeks to go and wait and work on it?
06:51 Or is it a bad thing because you're not going to see these players for a while?
06:54 I always get asked this question, I really don't know what to answer,
06:58 even if we're winning or losing, I really don't know.
07:01 The reality is that when they come back we'll work with them
07:04 and make sure we are ready to play the next game.
07:06 Can I just check in on what happened with Mark Fleckernan,
07:09 and when you found out he wouldn't be available today?
07:11 Illness this morning.
07:13 How do you think Tom Skotoski came on?
07:16 I think he played a good game, I must say.
07:19 Again, we are four minutes away from a fantastic story,
07:24 I could praise him in the dressing room, praise him to you guys,
07:27 come in, clean sheet, talk about Ethan 'The Mountain' Pinnock,
07:32 he did fantastic, and now of course he still did fantastic,
07:35 but it's not the same good story.
07:37 That's football.
07:39 Injuries are keen as well, it feels like it's just constantly mounting at the moment,
07:43 how are you feeling about that?
07:45 I think it's when it rains it pours, so it's a little bit of a challenge,
07:50 but we're up for the challenge, the boys are performing very well,
07:54 and we will get out of this.
07:56 Anything else?
07:59 Right, we'll leave it there, thank you very much everybody.
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