“Incredibly impressive” Thomas Frank delivers honest verdict on Sheffield Wednesday project.
Brentford manager Thomas Frank has given a candid view on Sheffield Wednesday’s long-term ambition of returning to the Premier League – and spoke glowingly on the job Danny Röhl is doing at Hillsborough.
The highly-regarded Bees manager, who has overseen a steadily-built project of sustainable success at Brentford since joining the club in 2018 and has established them as a Premier League force, watched on as the Owls held his side to a 1-1 Carabao Cup draw in 90 minutes before winning out by virtue of penalties.
Wednesday have been on a steep upward curve since the appointment of Röhl and his coaching staff in October last year and with the German boss having discussed the need for steady build-up towards their goals, the hope is that the Hillsborough club can work towards the sort of promotion challenge that took them to back-to-back Championship play-off campaigns last decade.
Röhl has spoken about the need for patience in getting to that stage and has stressed the importance of medium and longer-term planning, both in improving the playing side and the club’s structures off the field. It’s a theme that rings true to Frank, who achieved promotion to the big league in 2021 and has welcomed vast improvements at Brentford on both fronts in his time at the club.
In conversation with The Star after Tuesday night’s cup outing, the Dane described the long-term vision needed to achieve a return to the top tier when asked what he made of the project Röhl is trying to spearhead at S6.
“It depends on what the goal is, if the goal for Sheffield Wednesday – as it is for every club I guess – to come back into the Premier League, then that is a big task,” he said. “Following his (Röhl) job in the last 12 months, I think it is incredibly impressive what he did last season to stay in the Championship. Then this season, when I watch the games they played, it’s very impressive.
“I like the structure of the team, I like the work ethic and it will be step by step. It took Brentford six years in the Championship before we got the chance in the play-offs, then three play-offs, a semi-final. It takes time to build. It really does. I think he is doing well.”
Wednesday made nine changes to the side that won at Portsmouth last week and having stayed in the game following Kevin Schade’s early opener, were able to bring fresh momentum into a second half from the bench. The Brentford boss admitted the Owls gave his side a fright after Djeidi Gassama’s stunning leveller and was impressed by the effort shown by the visiting side.
Frank said: “The players coming on, we knew they would run through a brick wall facing a Premier League side. They may have got more excited that we named a strong line-up and they worked incredibly hard. They are well organised. I think we created quite a bit first half, but second half it seemed like they closed us down. I think they did well.”
