Brentford manager Thomas Frank insists that Said Benrahma is ‘not going anywhere’ despite speculation surrounding him moving to the Premier League.
The 24-year-old scored the opening goal for the Bees in their 2-0 victory over Fulham as the second tier resumed on Saturday afternoon after an absence of more than three months.
Reports have recently linked Benrahma with a move to a Premier League club, with the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Leicester City all vying for his signature for the £31m rated man.
But addressing rumours over Benrahma’s future following the win at Craven Cottage, Frank questioned why the player would want to leave the Bees, who moved three points closer to the automatic promotion places.
He told Sky Sports: “Of course there’s rumours – but he’s not going anywhere, why should he?
“He’s enjoying playing and why he came, of course we have a good relationship, but it’s because we’ve actually been practising for him being patient, stay away from the ball, stay on the last line and then he can get the tap ins and he did that, so we’ve actually been practising that the whole week, so it’s quite nice it worked out.”
The Bees are now within a point of Fulham following the win and next play second placed West Brom next Friday. City lost touch with the top six after their disappointing 3-1 loss at Blackburn.
And Frank believes after securing the three points at Craven Cottage, the Bees now have a ‘chance’ of being in the mix for automatic promotion and making the top two.
He said: “Of course there’s nine games left of the season, we have big ambition to see if we can get promoted.
“Of course if you’re up there where we are now of course you need to go for that and why not go for the top two.
“But I’ve also been saying the whole season, one training at a time, on game at a time, we can’t do that differently now, but of course we knew that this game and the next game was extremely important.
“But obviously if we didn’t win today the next game doesn't matter more or less for the top two, so now we have a chance and we’re ready to meet West Brom next Friday.”
