Andrews and Frank shared beers the right response to tedium of scoreless start to New Year

Brentford 0 v Tottenham Hotspur 0

Premier League

Matchweek 19

Talking Points

By Kaz Mochlinski at the Brentford Community Stadium

There may not have been much to watch in Brentford’s goalless draw with Tottenham Hotspur, but there was plenty nevertheless for the two head coaches, Keith Andrews and Thomas Frank, to talk about over a beer after the match.

Friendly from their work together for the Bees before Frank’s move to Spurs in the summer, they still live close to each other, and inevitably they managed to briefly exchange a few words ahead of the kick-off, plus again at the full-time whistle.

Having agreed to catch up for a chat when all their matchday duties were completed, it is interesting to wonder what topic came up first. The booing of Frank, the red card inexplicably not given, Brentford’s home form, Tottenham’s clean sheets?

An inkling of what may have been discussed in private came from Frank’s and Andrews’ public comments. Both provided subtle reminders that they have only just completed the first half of their debut seasons in their present posts.

“Thomas knows this club better than I do” admitted Andrews. “So he’s very aware of what can happen here, when the electricity starts to get going within the stadium. The fans, the players feed off that, and vice-versa.

“It’s a very dangerous place to come and play. So I thought it was very respectful by him of the environment, and what we can produce as a team here, that he did his best to nullify it.”

With a smile, he apologised: “Sorry there weren’t any goals… We want to entertain. We have done that pretty well, here this season in particular. And we want to keep growing the team, and developing the team.

“We always want to be a team that takes a step forward, rather than a step back. I thought Spurs were very respectful of what we are and what we can do here.

“I don’t think it’s the time of year for us. We had an extra day. We wanted to come into the game full of energy and full of endeavour and trying to do the right things.

“And the opposition always play their part. And, let’s not forget, they’re a team that’s playing in the Champions League. That has spent a lot of money on a lot of very good players.

“And we’ve no given right to beat teams like Spurs. We’ve got to earn that. Tonight we had a clean sheet, we take the point, and we move on. You’ll hopefully get more goals next time!”

At the turn of the year, Andrews’ appraisal of his work to date was quite informative: “We want to evolve as a team. We want to develop as a team. Naturally, at the start of the season, we were building and growing.

“We were sitting a little bit deeper. We grew the out-of-possession style, and the physical style, by being a bit more aggressive, getting more aggressive higher up the pitch. With the ball, confidence has naturally grown.

“And the structure of the team has evolved as the weeks and months have gone on. And then, with the results that we have had here in particular, I think the opposition have come up with game plans to try and nullify obvious threats of our’s.

“So it’s up to us to develop different types of threats... But that’s the evolution of the team, that we need to keep trying to push really.”

Frank could not avoid the topic of being booed by the Spurs supporters in the away section, after having heard during the match their loud and unironic chants of “Boring, boring, Tottenham!”

“I think they seemed like they were not too satisfied. And it’s fair when we don’t hit that top performance overall. But I think it’s double-sided, because I think what we need to understand is the acknowledgement of the defensive side of the game.

“Which we’ve done excellent today against a team that just scored three against Liverpool, three against Man United, so on and so on. But, of course, the offensive part needs to be better. There’s no two ways about that.”

And he continued: “I think there’s two things in it. I think if you as a team are not strong defensively - and that’s not the same as you can’t play offensive football - it’s just impossible to compete over a long season.

“Impossible. If you want to end in the nice, good position you’d like to end in. Then, of course, the offensive part of it, you need to open up enough and do that. I think we still do that.

“Then there’s another element, no matter what shape, offensive or defensive, you are, you can’t make the amount of unforced errors we do.”

Plus Frank added: “Of course we need to play. It’s not that we don’t want to play offensive or attacking football. I just think, when we’re not, how can you say, on the top of the game we would like to be, we work very, very hard on that.

“But, while you work hard on that, you can’t, if you struggle scoring goals, let’s say that, or don’t create enough chances, you can’t open up too much because then you need to score too many goals. So it’s a fine balance.”

This time, Frank probably needed that post-game beer a lot more than Andrews did…