Thomas Frank is reluctant to accept he is one of Brentford’s most prized assets, but his record speaks for itself.
The Bees were 18th in the Championship when the Dane took over in December 2016. After taking them to the Premier League in 2021, Frank guided the club to 13th and then ninth place last season — missing out on Europe by just two points.
Brentford have established themselves as a stable top-fight club and a team that Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Mikel Arteta have all admitted they do not enjoy facing.
Frank’s role in that rise has earned him new admirers. He admits he has turned down recent job offers because he feels there is still so much more to achieve with Brentford.
“Yeah, I have”, Frank tells Standard Sport. “But I doubt I’ll find a club that does everything better than Brentford. I’ve got a good daily life, which is important. What will happen in the future, I don’t know. I'm very ambitious — that could be here, that could be somewhere else.
“If it turns out that I one day move, it’s because I felt that was the right decision. But there’s too much I want to improve here.”
Lauded for their family feel and buy low, sell high transfer strategy, Brentford have established themselves as one of the best-run clubs in the Premier League.
"I would love to think Brentford's club culture is among the best in the Premier League - actually, in the world"
After recovering from a sticky start to the season, the Bees face Luton at home tomorrow knowing a win will lift them into the top half of the table.
“I would love to think our club culture is among the best in the Premier League — actually, in the world,” Frank says. “We do the simple stuff very well. What does that mean? There’s a couple of things that are very important.
“The alignment between [owner] Matthew Benham, Phil Giles, the sporting director, Lee Dykes, the technical director, and me is spot on. A very important ingredient for success… tick.
“Next ingredient: a good culture in the club among the staff and the players — a hard-working togetherness, still wanting to innovate, reflect, get better, learn.
“The next ingredient is recruitment. We work with a tactically flexible group of top players. I like to play efficient football. I don’t know if we [scout] smarter than others.
"A lot of clubs do recruitment well, but we’ve certainly done very well in getting good players to [be worth] decent money. Now it’s getting more difficult, because we want to go to the next level!
“Those four elements are just so difficult to nail. The ‘no d***heads’ policy is a big thing. You can see we are a team and staff that care for each other. We’ve got what I would call a ‘nice’ performance environment, where we go to work and it’s enjoyable, but on the pitch it’s life or death. That means the world.”
For everything Brentford and their ambitious manager have got right, the supremacy of the Premier League’s elite presents a significant obstacle to the Bees reaching the next level.
“We know money is important in football, no doubt about that”, Frank admits. “The so-called ‘top-six’ clubs are just so superior. They get more Premier League money, more revenue, more sponsor deals, more TV money. They also have a bigger wage bill than the rest of us. Because of that, they also have — or should have — a better squad.
“So the ‘top six’ is very, very difficult to compete with. But, of course, it’s sport, and life and football go in circles. It’s not like every year the ‘top-six’ teams have finished one, two, three, four, five, six. It would be boring. And that’s very important. That gives you hope that you can get in there. But with Newcastle, it’s more ‘top seven’ now. Then we have Brighton and [Aston] Villa, clubs on the up.
“I don’t have jealousy, those two clubs deserve to be in Europe. We were two points off Villa and we could have easily made up that margin. Over the season we were as good as Villa, if not a tiny bit better. Is it something we’d like to do in the future? Yes. But I’d never make Europe a target.
“If money [corresponds to] your [aims] then we should be getting relegated. I don’t believe in these big targets. I understand expectations of the bigger clubs. Manchester City, the only thing they can say: ‘We need to win the Treble every year’. Liverpool: aim for the title. Arsenal: the title. But it’s all relative. If we got into Europe, it would be like any other ‘top-six’ club winning the title.
"I hope, and think, Ivan Toney will be a Brentford player on February 1"
“In our [three seasons], we’ve been bottom three for budget. It shouldn’t be possible what we do, but what we do we do very well. That’s why we are capable of competing.”
Frank has called Brentford a “selling club” and acknowledges it is important Ivan Toney, who returns from his betting ban on January 17 and will be the subject of transfer interest next year, “retains his [financial] value” so the Bees can one day profit from his sale.
Frank says: “Everyone saw what he did last year. It’s not like he broke a leg or did his ACL, so he’s fit and probably even more ambitious to get success. I’m convinced he will be absolutely on it.
“I don’t want to lose him. I hope, and think, he’ll be a Brentford player on February 1.”
