I can sympathise with Brentford boss Thomas Frank, who said his team did ‘everything’ better than Birmingham City during their 1-0 defeat at Griffin Park. The stats back him up. Brentford had 76% possession, 15 shots, 3 shots on target, 6 corners and hit the woodwork 3 times. Birmingham had 1 shot and 2 corners. Birmingham won because their shot went into the goal and none of Brentford’s did. I just listened to the commentary on Radio WM and probably shouldn’t comment on the game, but I will. I think we were lucky.
Pep Clotet’s interviews and comments have been interesting. My impression is that he has accepted the fact that he is not responsible for deciding the system the team will play and he follows the instructions given by Xuandong Ren. However, he is keen to make it clear that it takes time to change the way a team plays. In an interview after the game he said,
“We want to keep the hard-working mentality of this Club, the defensive organisation. We want to turn into more of a challenger for possession, slowly build that more offensive type of football.
You can either do a major turnaround, or do it slowly. Brentford, the way they play, it didn’t take three months – they did it over a long period. We don’t want to lose the type of Club we are. We want to add to it.”
If Pep accepts the instructions he is given and Xuandong Ren gives him the time and players he needs to make the changes, then we might just have something that will work. As I said in my last post, there’s always hope.
