Brentford head coach Thomas Frank is not expecting any touchline confrontation with Tottenham boss Antonio Conte on Thursday – as long as the Italian “behaves”.
Frank takes his Bees team to north London to face Spurs, where he will come up against a man he calls “one of the best managers in the world”.
Both men are known for their exuberant behaviour in the technical area, but Frank is not expecting any issues.
“If he behaves there will be no problem,” Frank joked when asked if there could be fireworks. “I like the way he is on the touchline, I only met him once before when I was assistant to Dean Smith and we played them (Chelsea) in the FA Cup.
“I can’t remember if anything happened, they won 4-0 or something, but he was top class after. What happens when the 90 minutes is going is one thing, but after is another.
“I think Conte is one of the best managers in the world.
“One thing is his results in the different teams he has been in charge of, but there are two main things, one thing is that they are very structured, very defensively solid, and then I like to see when the team is reflective of the personality of the manager and has a very strong mentality and he will teach them his mentality to become a winning team.
“Hopefully they are not there yet and we can maybe do something against them.”
Conte is the latest big-name manager for the Dane to test himself against, having beaten Rafael Benitez and drawn with Jurgen Klopp, with a match-up against Pep Guardiola to come in December.
“That is a privilege and fantastic challenge,” he said.
“I look forward to that challenge every single week. I’m just looking forward to going out there and competing against them.
“But in the end it is 11 players from Brentford against 11 players from Tottenham. It is 11 players that need to do it on the pitch. I am privileged I have players who I trust.”
