Thomas Frank
Team news
Ajer and Norgaard should be available [for Old Trafford].
United assessment
The club is one of the biggest in world football, what they created over the years. The team are obviously struggling in terms of the ambitions, I don’t think that’s any secret – I can say that without any disrespect. They’ve had a tough season as always, it’s not good when you need to sack a manager or head coach because something is not right.
Does United being lucky in the reverse fixture give Brentford the impetus to beat them this time?
I think we played a fantastic first half and should have easily been two goals. They had unfortunately their best performing player this season [David De Gea] once again, perform fantastically against us. We couldn’t quite keep it up second half, but I think the overall performance; you’d be satisfied if you were Brentford playing against one of the biggest clubs in the world.
You were at Fulham in midweek. Opposition watch ahead of next season?
It’s not that often that I have an evening off and apparently the same time as Man City-Real Madrid so I’m a little bit in doubt if I made the right choice to go to that game in all due respect of Fulham and Nottingham Forest! It’s obvious that it’s two teams that we are going to potentially face next season.
Unsung heroes
I would say one of the players that are playing regularly in the team – Ethan Pinnock. There are a lot of others, but he is our rock. I would like to mention two other players – one Saman Ghoddos. The ability to step as a RWB against Tottenham and do fantastic and be fit, understand the role and just ready to adapt. He played RWB for a start, he also played LWB during a game, he played number eight, striker. I think he hasn’t played as a centre-back and goalkeeper this season. Shandon Baptiste is a player who has been out the whole of last year more or less, and then he came in and had a fantastic pre-season – was unlucky to be injured. He’s training very hard and suddenly we’re going to need him, I know that.
