Thomas Frank reminded Brentford that they cannot afford to let their standards slip for a single second in the Premier League after suffering a 4-1 defeat to Southampton.
Brentford have enjoyed a decent first half of their debut Premier League season. They amassed a respectable 23 points from their first 19 matches. But they could not add any more from their 20th game.
In losing 4-1 to Southampton, they suffered their heaviest defeat of the season. Jan Bednarek put Saints ahead before Vitaly Janelt equalised. However, Southampton pulled away via an Alvaro Fernandez own goal followed by strikes from Armando Broja and Che Adams.
Southampton subsequently leapfrogged Brentford in the table. Bees boss Thomas Frank has therefore been left to reflect on what went wrong.
Although they are still in a comfortable position in the table, Frank is aware that they need to maintain higher standards – particularly defensively – to show they belong at this level.
He told BBC Sport: “It is very clear. Fair play to Southampton but we need to look at ourselves. If we don’t play every second in every Premier League game 100% we will be in big trouble and we didn’t do that today.
“We came back into the game but we conceded another goal to a set piece and we had to do better.
“Generally very strong defensive. We gave five chances away and Southampton scored from four of them.
“Goals change the momentum of games. I think first half we need to be much better on the ball and take more care on the ball. We didn’t do that.
“We gave very little away and could have stayed in the game but in the second half we were too open.
“Every game we win or learn. We will definitely learn a lot from this game. It will be so hard to watch back but it is a reminder we have to be 100% every game or we will be punished.”
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Janelt, the man who temporarily restored parity for Brentford, also feels there is plenty for Brentford to learn from the loss.
However, the midfielder was not getting too disheartened. He insisted they can pick up points from a challenging run of games ahead. Fixtures with Liverpool, Manchester United and Wolves await in the remainder of January.
Janelt said: “It wasn’t our best match but we have to look forward to the next match and keep our head up.
“We play every game with the intensity as high as possible. But today I don’t know what happened. We have to learn from this and go again.
“We have every week a chance to get three points. No-one expected us to get three points against Aston Villa. Every week can change.
“Next one and a half week is tough. Three tough games but we have to give everything as always and hopefully get some points.”
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