Frank feeling confident as Bees prepare for another playoff tilt

Thomas Frank is in confident mood as Brentford prepare for the playoffs that could ultimately take them into the Premier League.

The west Londoners lost last year’s final at Wembley against local rivals Fulham and, although they have missed out on automatic promotion this time, another shot at glory awaits.

A 1-0 victory over relegation-threatened Rotherham United was the Bees’ first home win in five attempts, with a Bryan Mbuemo header in 26 minutes – following on from his winning goal against Bournemouth last weekend – enough to separate the sides.

The hosts subsequently dominated the second half at the Brentford Community Stadium but could not add to their tally.

Nevertheless, with the Bees poised to end the season as the Championship top scorers for the second successive season, head coach Frank is understandably upbeat.

He said: “What made me proud and satisfied - and I hope for all Bees fans - is what we created over the last many years express itself. The last two years of a lot of hard work culture.

“If we are top scorers two years in a row, if you look at all the stats and numbers, I think we deserve more. This is football and small margins that decide things in the end and we can definitely look at ourselves the end of the season and say, ‘you know what, we gave everything, we did everything.'

“They are an extremely good group and there are strong relationships inside the squad. They are full of confidence and hopefully Bryan (Mbuemo) will flourish and hit a high level in the last games.

“We won deservedly tonight. It was not easy against Rotherham - we had to fight a lot for the first 25 minutes and we did not really get control of the game. Then one bit of class and brilliance and from then on we were in control. We created all the chances to kill the game 2-0 and put in a lot of fight in.”

Frank was also pleased in particular with some individual performances. Ivan Toney somehow failed to score what would have been his 30th goal of the campaign in an otherwise busy, impressive performance.

However, midfielder Vitaly Janelt was the Bees’ orchestrator-in-chief against the shot-shy Millers. The German midfielder went off with a knock in the dying moments and will be assessed shortly before Brentford’s next game, at home to newly-promoted Watford on Saturday.

“He is a top player and the good thing is that he will only get better,” declared Frank, who made five changes as he continues to compensate for injured duo Rico Henry and Josh Dasilva.

“The way he came into the club you could just see that the first training day, the way he distributed the ball, the passes - he just came in with that aura in a way, not arrogant at all, just confident. I always speak about attitude and he is top on that: confident but humble.”