Beesotted’s Jim Levack tips his hat to Brentford Head Coach, Thomas Frank – although the Bees’ boss is unlikely to win Premier League Manager of the Season – would Klopp or Pep have done a better job at Brentford?
When the Premier League Manager of the Season is announced the only surprise will be if it’s a bus conductor from West London.
The usual suspects with cash galore and superstar allure will almost certainly walk off with the crown… just like they do every year.
Our only hope is that the public outside Liverpool and City vote for arguably the greatest footballing fairy-tale of all time… and choose Thomas Frank.
He’ll be the first to insist he’s just the figurehead, always calm and quite rightly keen to extol the virtues of the team around him.
But he has masterminded an adventure that would have had the Roy of the Rovers script writers tearing up their notes and dismissing the plot as too far-fetched.
Nine years ago I drove away from Wembley through a stream of jubilant Yeovil fans in green and white, with my two tearful sons. “Will we ever…?” they asked. “I don’t know,” I replied.
The Glovers finished 12th in the National League this season. We’ve astounded everyone outside the bus stop by breathing life into a stale top flight and are hopefully here to stay.
Stats and tables showing our points per pound spent have been doing the rounds all week, and that alone is the reason why Thomas and his squad deserve the accolade.
He exudes a calmness that permeates the whole set up at Brentford, but there’s a steely determination paired with humble confidence that sets him apart from his mind-game playing peers.
To watch him interacting with his players is an object lesson in man management. He knows what makes each individual tick, nurtures them, has fun with them, demands more of them in the nicest possible way.
Watching him and Pontus at the recent awards was to see two people relaxed and at the top of their game, with huge mutual respect. Not hard to see why the skipper actually chose to join the project.
So indulge me. If we swapped Jurgen for Thomas how would that go? Personally I’m not so sure it would work as well. Thomas, like some players who have left, is a perfect fit for the system. Leaving would only diminish their return.
The grass isn’t always greener as one of our greatest ever managers, Dean Smith, has discovered. Hierarchies with itchy trigger fingers do not make for reasoned decision-making.
The bigger picture philosophy in place at TW8 – epitomised by the lack of knee-jerking during this season’s two blips – is breathtakingly beautiful. In hindsight.
Yes, there were times (I’m sure you knew…) when the ‘will we, won’t we’ question kept popping into my head. Every 20 minutes or so, usually in work meetings but only for a few weeks.
But Matthew Benham did it his way, kept the faith, stayed calm and trusted in the bigger picture. If we’d gone down, the principles would have remained unchanged.
That reassurance that has spread through the club and supporters like a ray of sunshine is what has allowed Thomas the freedom to be brave… and succeed.
No Watford managerial turnstile here, no work ‘em ‘til they drop “miracle man” approach. Just a good honest work ethic, togetherness and transparency.
To lump Thomas in with Eddie Howe in the nominations is, to my mind, a bit of an insult. Yes, there are pressures when you have unlimited cash to spend to beat the drop, but it doesn’t half make life easier.
Our Head Coach, his backroom team and medical staff have hit the brief. They’ve improved the squad individually and as a whole, squeezed percentage improvements from every player and most importantly kept the club rooted and linked to the fans.
Perhaps the highlight for me this season – Chelsea away, Wolves away, Everton away, Liverpool at home, the list goes on – has been the pre-match and half-time videocam footage.
Boys and girls, our fans of tomorrow, singing Hey Jude with the same gusto as veterans of trips to Carlisle and Torquay, the crying grandad, Thomas’ unbridled joy as he celebrates with Woody, the image of a proud Sikh resplendent in Bees shirt, families of all beliefs and creeds freed from desire together.
All indelibly etched in my memory, layer upon layer of reasons why this club will never lose its unique identity.
So when the Manager of the Year and his team are announced, don’t be downhearted.
We all know who the true winners are.
Jim Levack
There are two answers here. One short and one being an actual answer. The short one is ‘no’, simply because this IS Thomas Franks team of which he was part of building for the past several years and neither Klopp nor Pep know it anywhere near as well as Thomas. Also, with all due respect, we aren’t Peps or Klopps ‘kinda team’ in terms of how they want to play. (That being said if we were in some sort of multiverse science fiction scenario and actually decided to boot Thomas Frank after he got us to the Prem and replace him with ‘cant wait to be here’ Klopp or Pep than I bet everything I own that Zegarman would have done miles better than the Catalonian, but I will explain that during the ‘actual answer’ bit).
So, now for the ‘actual answer’ – if we were seriously (but how on earth can anything like this be spoken about in such matter?) facing a scenario with either of said Managers at the helm we would have to probably arrive at the point where Thomas Frank replaced Dean Smith. (Personally – regardless of the fact I completely agree with Dave aka Jim on the shades of green – I believe Dean Smith goes to Villa 100 times out of 100 because he is a boyhood fan and this was an absolute dream job that quite possibly would have never happened again should he turn it down back then. And I’m sure he does not regret going. It is a completely different scenario to the one in which Uwe ditched us for Wigan). Pep would have been eaten up by the Championship. I don’t rate the guy anywhere near what most people seem to (in all fairness I hardly rate him at all). THAT Barcelona team would manage ITSELF to the titles and he merely arrived at Bayern midway through a period of utter dominance in which they were destroying everyone domestically both before and after Pep. And, surprise surprise, it WASNT PEP who won Champions League with Bayern either. The guy is stubborn and blindfolded and can only work and play a certain system. That’s why he keeps tripping over in cups, especially European. Because he has to face different styles which, time and time again, successfully counter his teams when it really matters. Prem is ‘known territory’ to him by now and with the players he has ANYONE would be challenging. Guy buys people for £100M not because he needs them but because he CAN. He wouldn’t have a scoobybloodydoo what to do with Toney. He HATES players like that. He destroyed what was left of David Villa back at Barcelona, Zlatan wanted to beat him up and he was doing everything he could NOT to play Lewandowski at Bayern until it proved beyond doubt that someone will petrolbomb his car if he continues to try. Halaand WOULD BE 40 goals a season, domestically, Terminator at Liverpool. He will not score this much (albeit he will score a lot) at City because Pep will play Phil Foden instead in circa 15 games next year. Klopp on the other hand has a history of taking teams against a domestic hegemon (both Dortmund and Liverpool) after actually building them up and improving over period of time. He only ever spends idiotic amounts of money if he REALLY needs a certain player and he’s pretty much spot on every time when he does. He also buys people who turn out to be brilliant for relatively ‘modest’ amounts (Mo, Luiz Dias) quite consistently. He improves and catapults players into superstars (Lewy, Mo, Sadio, Virgil and now likely Dias) time and time again. He has been successful BOTH domestically and in Europe and has very different players in his teams that can fit in different scenarios when it’s required but can also play like for like anytime. Liverpool under Fenway is somewhat similar to Brenford in the sense that they don’t do knee jerk and did allow Klopp to get on with it for few years before current Liverpool was formed. Remember the times when they had to score 3 goals to win a game because they would always concede 2? I do. It wasn’t that long ago.
So, summing it up – Klopp would mesh, mix, match and do just fine with Brentford while Pep would have not. Thomas Frank is brilliant, one of the best coaches/managers currently in England and with an upside, much like everything at Brentford. But let’s not forget he has been part of this for a while and it is VERY important. This incoming season will be the real test. If he passes it – sky is the limit.