Thomas Frank
We saw the loss of an England great in Jimmy Greaves, what were your reflections on that and perhaps what you’ve seen about his achievements?
To be fair, I’ve only seen some clips of him, a lot of people knew him but he was a little bit before my time because I’ve not lived in England, I’m not the best to ask about this, but my good friend and our sport psychologist Michael Caulfield, constantly spoke about him about pass the ball into the net. If you want a good headline for tomorrow, you can say that I said that to Neal Maupay, Ollie Watkins and Ivan Toney; just pass it into the net and you’re going to be a top scorer.
You’ve mentioned Ivan Toney there. What perfect advice for him and what a performance from him at the weekend, it sparked more calls talking about him, and a possible call up to England. If we’re going to see that soon, is he the type to let that get to his head?
That’s a good question. First and foremost, I’ll say Ivan has a top mentality and is very level-headed. Of course, he has a big confidence and a big belief in himself. I think that’s massively important if you want to be a top performer, but he knows what is in front of him. That is what he needs to do well; the next training, the next match and then things happen for reasons. So if Gareth [Southgate] thinks he is good enough, he will call him up.
The mood must be pretty high at the moment after the Wolves win?
Of course, it’s really good. One thing is an away win against Wolves in the Premier League, who are a well established side and I think they have been really good actually this season than all the last four, but the first three, they’ve been very, very unlucky, but it was deserved and we had a top performance in the first half. We were better than them and fully deserved the win even having ten against 11, so that’s given us a massive boost but we’re humble. We know we need to be bang on it against Oldham tomorrow and that’s a big part of being a top team or a top performer. That is that you’re mentally ready for every task that you’re going to face.
You used that phrase again at the weekend “Brentford being just a bus stop in Hounslow” you are a pretty posh bus stop for this game against the team currently bottom of League Two?
Yeah, I think it’s the truth. We are just a bus stop in Hounslow. That’s why I use it a lot. You can say we are a posh bus stop when we are facing Oldham. I think that’s what I said to the players that it’s twelve years ago, we were in League Two as a club, and it goes slow up, but it goes so quickly the other way. So if we one day forget to be humble, or forget to, be able to empty the pin or actually do the basic stuff, that is today that you’re not going to develop further.
Oldham got to this stage through penalty shoot outs in both previous rounds. Have you been practising penalties just in case the same happens?
To be fair, this time, we haven’t, and there’s nothing to do it with Oldham. We didn’t do it before, but we have a clear strategy for it. We thought there were other aspects of the game that was more important to train. If we’re going into it, we will be ready, ready for it. But the thing is, we have watched as much of Oldham as much against Wolves so it’s exactly the same preparation so we’ll be ready for it.
The small matter of a game against Liverpool coming up at the weekend – is your focus on that at all or everything on this game?
Everything under this game, I think it is crucial, crucial, crucial, crucial. If you want to do anything such as ending high as possible, go as far as possible in the Carabao Cup, we can only maximise our thoughts on the game tomorrow. I think that is what takes you as far as possible. But of course, as soon as we have finished the game against Oldham. Okay, sleep, bang the next morning, look forward.
How is your team looking? Any team news coming into this one and do you expect to make a lot of changes?
No injuries, no injuries for this game, everyone is available. Of course we have the red card to Shandon Baptiste so he’ll be out. There’ll be some changes, but it will be a strong side with international players and it will be a strong bench.
