So it was all change at Brentford yesterday. Kind of. With Burton Albion the visitors this Saturday, and the hope that we’ll start to bounce back lying heavy in the air following a dismal run that has most recently seen the 5-0 thrashing at Norwich, it was press conference day.
Top of the agenda was surely the arrival of Danish coach Thomas Frank in the role as a co-assistant head coach to Dean Smith, alongside Richard O’Kelly. How his addition helps the Bees will only be seen over time but Dean clearly sees it as a good decision. A post match meeting with the owner this week has revealed the admission that : “I was with Matthew Benham on Monday and he is very positive about us moving forward, as are the Directors of Football”.
Thomas Frank joins the team. Christmas presence for Dean
Three days later, this is announced. Presumably, though, something that has been some time in the planning, given Thomas was chosen by a panel led by Dean but which included several others including our co-directors of football . As ever, the whole thing is on ‘official’.
Having previously had the managerial hot seat at Brøndby, Thomas left in March after Danish newspapers discovered that the club’s chairman Jan Bech Andersen had adopted a false name and gone onto an internet fans forum to criticise him. Specifically, Frank’s management of the club. Regardless of the fact that I can’t imagine a scenario where the host of our own fan forum pulls off a rubber mask, Scooby Doo style, to reveal he’s actually Cliff Crown or even Mr Benham (if for no other reason then there isn’t a cache of Confederate gold hidden under Griffin Park) this can only be a win-win for the Bees.
I’d have got away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling journalists
Let the Danes shoot themselves in the foot. Their loss is our gain if the press conference is to be believed, with the key strength Thomas bringing being his ’skill set’ .
Certainly, it seemed to be ‘phrase of the day’ (replacing ‘blip’ from last week). And even better, not a hashtag in sight to #welcomeThomas. Nice work, all round. Here’s to seeing if Thomas can have an immediate impact at the weekend
The other arrival was that of our new ‘app’ for iPhone and the other one (Sorry, can’t mention it by name – hate the format. Awful, awful devices). Having had a look around on this already, I have to say it’s great. A very impressive product and all that better that it’ll cost you absolutely nothing . If only the main club website was this intuitive, clean and easy to use (although, equally, we aren’t alone in suffering the contractual obligation of the current template). You can get it now and, in a day for plugging ‘official’, you can find the links to the app there.
Here’s hoping to see how it holds up in a live game environment on Saturday agasint Burton Albion. Then again, one could say the same about the team.
I’m sure we’ll all be just fine. Here’s to three points.
Nick Bruzon
BrentfordFC 