‘Don’t use excuses’: Thomas Frank dismisses Wolves’ time-wasting claims
Brentford were 2-0 winners at Molineux
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Brentford manager Thomas Frank batted away complaints over time-wasting from Wolves boss Bruno Lage and insisted his side fully deserved their first Premier League away victory as they won 2-0 at Molineux.
Ivan Toney terrorised the team he almost joined seven years ago – his 2014 transfer from Northampton scuppered by a failed medical – as he won and scored a penalty, set up Byran Mbeumo for the second and had two goals disallowed in the first half alone.
The striker then chipped in defensively after a second-half red card for Shandon Baptiste put Brentford on the back foot in the closing stages, Wolves’ frustration only growing as they failed to score for a fourth league game out of five this season.
Afterwards Lage complained about the number of Brentford players needing treatment in the second half, plus a change of gloves for goalkeeper David Raya, but Frank responded with a wry smile.
“First of all I want to praise Bruno for his fantastic coaching career and the job he has done with Wolves,” he said. “He is an excellent coach and I hope you write that with what is coming next.
“I could ask him what he would have done if he was leading a newly-promoted team. We are just a bus stop in Hounslow, playing against Wolves, established in the Premier League and with 10 times our budget, leading 2-0 away, 10 versus 11.
“I think his players would lose a bit of time also. But I could also ask him how the first half went.
“You look at the game and did we deserve to win? Yes. Expected goals, big chances, everything. When it was 11 versus 11 and when it was 10 versus 11. You don’t use excuses, just say you lost to the better team on the day.”
Frank offered to post a picture of Raya’s gloves – which he insisted had a large hole in them – on the club’s website for any doubters, but preferred to focus on a performance in which Brentford showing their attacking threat in the first half and their defensive strength in the second.
“We have got eight points from five games and also three clean sheets,” he said. “It tells a lot about the job we are doing but we are also humble. We will celebrate for 24 hours only – I will allow myself an extra glass of red tonight but we have another game on Tuesday.”
Defeat was a fourth in five for Wolves.
Lage had no complaints with the decision to award Brentford a 28th-minute penalty when Marcal pulled Toney to the ground, but felt Wolves should have had one in the second half.
“I think we gave them one goal,” he said. “It was a penalty, no arguments about that, but then you have the situation when Adama (Traore) shoots just wide of the post, we can see one defender grabbing (Francisco) Trincao and nothing happened.
“I’m not complaining and I’m happy to be honest, but after these five games some decisions against us are very disappointing.
“Against Tottenham they had one penalty and then the same situation in their box against Raul (Jimenez) and nothing happened.
“Man United, everyone saw what they did to Ruben (Neves). Today, another penalty and then in their box nothing happened.
“The last 45 minutes I need to understand how many minutes we played because I saw too many players on the floor from the opponent. Even the goalkeeper changed his gloves.
“For now we stick to complaining about what we did and the way we offered the goals to the opponent.”