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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Jim van Wijk

Thomas Frank confident injury-stricken Brentford can turn the tide after winless streak

Brentford head coach Thomas Frank has challenged his injury-hit squad to focus on the positives as they aim to end a six-game winless run.

Midfielder Mikkel Damsgaard is the latest Bees player to face a spell on the sidelines, with the Denmark international having undergone minor knee surgery this week.

Germany forward Kevin Schade suffered an adductor injury during the warm-up against Everton last weekend and has also had surgery, while left-back Rico Henry is likely to miss the rest of the season with his own knee problem.

Ben Mee, Shandon Baptiste and Josh Dasilva also remain sidelined, while striker Ivan Toney continues his Football Association ban for breaching gambling rules.

Brentford lost 1-0 at home to Arsenal in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night and are without a win in the Premier league since August 19, although they have drawn four games.

Frank wants everyone focused on the positives ahead of Sunday’s trip to Nottingham Forest.

"It’s important to look at our performances so far - we had one bad performance against Everton and the rest have been good or very good," the Bees boss said.

"Against Arsenal on Wednesday night is was a very good one (performance) again.

"We just need to keep doing what we are doing well, keep getting into the right positions and creating chances, then we will be fine.

"Eventually it will go in the back of the net, I don’t doubt that."

Frank, though, is not looking for excuses as the team aim to cope without Toney.

"Ivan is a world-class goal scorer and centre-forward, but we have players in the team that we fully trust," Frank told a press conference.

"There is not a doubt that the players that are playing up front will provide us with the goals we need."

Frank added: "He (Toney) is training well and helping the team on the training pitch, trying to get himself into a good position (physically).

"Of course he would prefer to be with the team, but that is not an option."

Brentford have not given a timescale for Damsgaard’s return from his operation.

"He saw a knee specialist and had a minor operation this week," said Frank. "Everything looked good in terms of the bigger parts that we could be worried about and that’s positive.

"They cleaned the knee and hopefully that’s the bit that will help him. We hope he will be back soon, but there is no timeframe.

"We will see how things settle down and then we will see how close he is."

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