Brentford boss Frank provides squad latest ahead of next two friendlies

Brentford boss Thomas Frank says his squad are physically where they want to be at this stage of pre-season.

The Bees’ head coach wants to boost up their sharpness over the next couple of weeks as they prepare for the start of the new campaign.

They have a couple more friendlies to play against fellow Premier League side Brighton and Hove Albion and Spanish outfit Real Betis before their first game away at Leicester City on Sunday 7th August.

‘Fine’...

Speaking about their pre-season, Brentford boss Frank has said, as per the club’s official website:

“It has been fine in many, many ways. It’s very important that you look past the result in friendlies, not neglecting it, but learn from it and use it going forward.

“I think physically we are where we want to be now, it’s (about) the sharpness over the next two weeks going into the start of the season.”

The London club were beaten 4-0 over the weekend by Bundesliga side Wolfsburg. Although Frank has insisted that results in friendlies aren’t too important, he has highlighted a couple of areas where his team need to improve:

“The first is defensive set-pieces, we conceded three goals that way. It’s something we’ve been discussing. We know we need to be really good at it, we are normally much better at it but today we weren’t up to those standards.

“Secondly, it was the quality on the ball. Everything from the little touch, playing forward, the weight of pass, protecting the ball and hitting a man. All of those things weren’t good enough on the ball.”

Brentford’s business

Brentford have been busy bolstering their ranks over recent weeks. Highly-rated young pair Aaron Hickey and Keane Lewis-Potter have arrived from Bologna and Hull City respectively and it will be interesting to see how they adapt to life in the top flight.

They have also signed goalkeeper Thomas Strakosha as competition with David Raya for their number one spot, whilst defender Ben Mee has joined following his departure from Burnley to inject more experience into their ranks.

In terms of outgoings, Christian Eriksen has joined Manchester United after his contract expired and the likes of Julien Jeanvier and Zanka have also left.

Other news

In other news, Swindon Town’s technical director Sandro Di Michele said they would like to emulate Brentford over the next few years.

He has said, as per BBC Sport:

“Brentford are a club that we admire and we have huge respect for, Brighton would be another club and there are a handful that we could talk about. Absolutely, everything that Brentford have done would be what we’re trying to do.”