FRANK’S BEES GET BACK TO WINNING WAYS
THREE-GAME LOSING RUN ENDS AGAINST STOKE
BRENTFORD head coach Thomas Frank believes his promotion chasing Bees are stronger after emerging from a three-game losing run to win their last two matches.
Frank’s side sit second in the Championship after Saturday’s come-from-behind 2-1 victory against Stoke.
Jacob Brown scored after just 27 seconds to give the visitors the lead, but Vitaly Janelt equalised before Ivan Toney’s 25th goal of the season secured victory and left Frank confident his side were back on track.
“In all seasons, but especially this one, every team will go through a dip at a certain stage, but it’s the ones that can handle it best that will be successful,” he said.
“In the second half we went from level five to level nine. We were quicker moving forward, we took the initiative and we had a much bigger mentality and attitude.”
Frank hailed moments of brilliance from his two goalscorers and paid tribute to the club’s coaching staff for Toney becoming the third striker in successive seasons to hit the 25-goal mark.
“Ivan wants to be better every day and he knows instinctively what he wants to do in those situations. It is down to him but also the work behind the scenes,” he said.
Defeats for Watford and Swansea left the Bees with a three-point cushion to the teams below them in the battle for automatic promotion.
Frank’s Bees can now turn their attention to leaders Norwich, who they face on Wednesday.
“That will be a very good game between two very good teams and I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
SCOTT Parker is confident the goals will come for Fulham after they extended their unbeaten run in the Premier League to five games with a 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace.
It moved the Whites to within three points of Newcastle and Brighton, but the visitors were left to reflect on what might have been in south London.
Third from bottom Fulham dominated possession and created the better chances at Selhurst Park and yet they have scored only four goals in their last six matches.
Parker insisted: “I see these players every day and I am confident in what I see. I see the attacking players coming in, trying to improve and get better.
“Of course in match situations the one thing you can aim at us is we have not managed at certain times to kill games off but it is a young team. A lot of these players are around the Premier League for the first time and what I constantly want from my group of players is a real honesty that we keep trying to improve and get better.
“Life tells me, and my experiences tell me, if you keep trying to do that, things change. We have unbelievable quality here, I see it, and it is now trying to get that to click in the key moments.”
Josh Maja almost broke the deadlock in the 68th minute, but his close-range header was brilliantly tipped wide by Palace goalkeeper Vicente Guaita.
The majority of Fulham’s opportunities went to Joachim Andersen while the hosts failed to have a single shot on target. Without top goalscorer Wilfried Zaha, the Eagles struggled to create chances and another poor attacking showing led to £RoyOut trending on Twitter.
Palace manager Roy Hodgson, after his 150th match in charge of the club, said: “Our ambition was to attack and create lots of goal chances, but unfortunately there are two teams on the field.
“They were very good, Fulham, at closing down and restricting our time and space and making certain the attacking moves and attacking options we were hoping to launch weren’t available to us.
“As a result, you have to play the games that’s out there and before the game we certainly didn’t set out to involve ourselves in a game where the opposition had as much of the ball as they did and were asking questions of us that they did.
“We set out to make it a very even game but, credit to Fulham, it didn’t happen and when it wasn’t happening we had to make certain the weapons we had at our disposal were also brought to bear.
“The major weapon we had today was the defensive shape and defensive organisation and desire of the players to make certain if we weren’t going to win the game, we weren’t going to lose it.”
Hodgson also aired his annoyance at Palace being forced to play again on Wednesday when Manchester United make the trip to Selhurst Park.
The clash was originally scheduled for March 21, but has been moved forward because the Red Devils are in FA Cup action.
“The Manchester United game thrust upon us is something we are pretty unhappy about, especially in this current state of affairs when we do have so many of our first-team players unavailable,” Hodgson bemoaned.
“It is pretty tough to play Man United now and then get three weeks off when we don’t need three weeks off. I would have much preferred if this game had stayed where it was.”
Palace, who are without eight firstteamers, including Zaha, remain 13th in the table.
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