“I knew him in Sweden as well”- Chelsea’s Graham Potter has nothing but praise for Brentford manager Thomas Frank

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A Stamford Bridge Too Far

·19 October 2022

“I knew him in Sweden as well”- Chelsea’s Graham Potter has nothing but praise for Brentford manager Thomas Frank

Chelsea manager Graham Potter has high praise for Brentford boss Thomas Frank

Speaking to the media ahead of the next game (h/t Football.London), Chelsea manager Graham Potter has high praise for Brentford boss Thomas Frank having known him from his time in Sweden.

Potter worked as a manager for the Swedish side Ostersund between 2011 and 2018. In that period, Frank took charge of the Denmark U17 and U19 sides, before managing Danish club Brondby and eventually joining Brentford in 2016, initially as an assistant manager to Dean Smith.

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Currently, both are doing well for their respective clubs in the Premier League, and are set to meet in a crunch encounter at the Gtech Community Stadium on Wednesday night.

Graham Potter used to manage Swedish side Ostersund before coming to the UK in 2018. (Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)

Talking about Frank and praising his work, here’s Potter (h/t Football.London):

“[I rate him] Very, very [highly]. I’ve followed his career since I’ve come back to the UK, and I knew him in Sweden as well. I know him well. I like him as a person, and we have similar thoughts about the game and life in general.”“I think coaches are judged by how much they get out of the players, how much they organise a team, how the results are in comparison to the expectation of those results, and he does a fantastic job.”

Brentford are certainly doing well this season with 13 points from 10 games and lying ninth in the table. With the limited resources they have along with a small yet congested stadium, Frank is doing an exceptional job to make his team compete with some of the biggest clubs in England.

Potter, on the other hand, has made a fantastic start to his reign at Chelsea. Out of the six games he has taken charge of so far, the team has won five of them, drawing the other. What’s more, they have kept a clean sheet in four of those six games.

Will Graham Potter continue his good start against Thomas Frank’s Brentford? (Photo by ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)

The Blues had trouble against the Bees last season though. They needed a heroic effort from goalkeeper Edouard Mendy to sneak a 1-0 win away from home, while comprehensively getting beat 4-1 at home.

So, this game is by no means easy. While the big one against Manchester United coming up this weekend could tempt the manager to rest some of his key players for this game, it may come back to bite him.

The better solution would be to start with the best XI and hope to get the points won early so that the substitutions can be made later on. The possibility of that happening is not very high as well.