Thomas Frank reflects on crucial Brentford development and re-emergence of BMW in pursuit of Leeds United and West Brom

Thriving Brentford recorded their fourth win in succession with Tuesday night's 3-0 cruise at Reading which put the third-placed Bees just two points behind second-placed West Brom and six points adrift of front-runners Leeds.

West Brom now have the chance to keep themselves five points clear of the Bees in Wednesday night's clash at Sheffield Wednesday - but Frank says his side are only concentrating on themselves and that it's up to Brentford's rivals to keep on winning.

Tuesday night's victory also saw the full re-emergence of Brentford's 'BMW' strike-force of Said Benrahma, Bryan Mbeumo and Ollie Watkins as Mbeumo made his first start since recovering from coronavirus.

Mbeumo scored Brentford's opener meaning each of the trio have now scored in the Bees' last three games.

And at the other end of the pitch, Frank has hailed Brentford's defensive improvement following his side's latest clean sheet with summer recruit from Leeds Pontus Jansson at the heart of the Bees defence.

"We knew going into this season that the one area that we needed to improve massively was the defensive side of the game," said Frank.

"That's everything from the organisation, the intensity, the desire to defend, all that and the boys have been fantastic in terms of their focus and their willingness to learn and want to do better.

"That's the one thing, the key thing that we have improved the most this season."

Turning attentions to the other end of the pitch, Frank said: "It's nice to see the BMW up and running again.

"Said scored in the first game, Ollie last game and now Bryan Mbeumo and that's very important.

"We know we need key players to score, that's key."

All eyes will now be on West Brom's clash at Sheffield Wednesday tonight but Frank said: "You can always talk about putting the pressure on them (West Brom), but the only thing we can do is focus on our training and our games – and to make sure that we win the next one.

“It’s then up to the other teams to either win or fail. We can’t look too far ahead.”

Brentford return to action on Saturday with a 3pm kick-off at Wigan Athletic.