‘Proud’ Thomas Frank hails ‘very impressive’ Brentford – and claims THEY deserved to beat Chelsea

Thomas Frank expressed his pride with Brentford‘s performance against Chelsea and insisted that his side deserved to win despite losing 1-0.

Chelsea prevailed courtesy of goal from Ben Chilwell just before half time, with Blues goalkeeper Edouard Mendy producing some outstanding saves to keep Brentford at bay.

Brentford put Chelsea under much pressure and Frank was pleased with the spirit that they showed. 

Brentford manager Thomas Frank was proud of his team’s display in the defeat to Chelsea

Frank’s team came close to scoring on a host of occasions, with Bryan Mbeumo striking the post twice. 

Speaking on Sky Sports, Frank said: ‘First, I’m very proud of the performance. If you look over the 90 minutes, there can only be one deserved winner, and that is us by quite a large margin, in terms of how many chances we created – five big chances.

‘We kept the champions of Europe to five shots in the whole game. That’s very impressive. I know they dominated a little bit more in the first half, but in the end, we were all over them and that’s very, very impressive. Proud of their performance, pleased with that, and that’s what we need to build on going forward.’

Although Chelsea managed to keep a clean sheet, at times they found it difficult to cope with the threat that Brentford posed.

Brentford put Chelsea under much pressure but were frequently denied by Edouard Mendy

Frank believes that Chelsea were fortunate to take all three points, commenting that they ‘nicked the win’. 

He said: ‘We knew we had a more offensive version (formation) with two strikers to try and put pressure on them. That helped a little bit more. Chelsea dropped off, so we kept the ball in better positions. They never got out. We know that in the set pieces we were stronger than them, so of course we need to play to our advantage. 

‘They nicked the win. They got a very, very lucky win here today. It’s all about the performance. If we play this game again, we win it. It is what it is. We really want to build on this.’

Frank described Chelsea as ‘very lucky’ and felt that Brentford should have won the game

Despite the defeat, Brentford remain in seventh place in the Premier League and they have received many plaudits for the way in which they have started the season.

After beating Arsenal and drawing with Liverpool, Brentford had hoped for another positive result against a major club and they gave a good account of themselves again.

Next up for Brentford is another high-profile fixture as they host Leicester next weekend.