Who had the more difficult job? Keith stepping up for his first ever managerial role at a club he knew, or you coming here to a club you didn’t know?
Thomas: “I think it’s, how can you say, difficult challenge, experience, whatever you call it. Two different levels. He’s come within the club, but he still needs to be standing out there a little bit more on his own, in front of everyone, facing players, staff, owners, press, everything. At the end of the day, it’s his decision, dealing with the ups and downs and it was not an easy summer, looking from the outside, with players leaving the club and stuff like that, and didn’t have just a perfect start to the first three or four games, he still kept calm. Here it’s different, of course, stepping into a new club, but again, you need to know how the players are, the club, leadership, everything. So, yeah, both good challenges.”
How will you feel on Saturday when you come up against players you bought for Brentford, players you trusted to go out and perform for Brentford?
Thomas: “That’s the nature of football. As I said, before the game and after the game, I’m looking forward to seeing good people. I really enjoy to work with players, staff, everyone, but during the game it’s just about competing and winning a match. It’s the same if I’m playing a padel game or something against good colleagues, when we’re playing, we’re playing, it’s not for fun, it’s competitive, and after we can be happy again.”
Heung-Min Son is back (against Slavia Prague on 9 December) – the fans are going to love seeing him, and I guess he might be able to give you some good luck?
Thomas: “That would be nice, no doubt about that. I’m so pleased for Sonny that he’ll come back and really hopefully got the well-deserved celebration for everything he’s done for this club. I think it was a fantastic send off in South Korea, but on Tuesday I really hopes he gets that.”
Sonny was really good at bringing people together at this club – do you think you’ve missed him as a kind of unifying figure on the pitch and in the dressing room this season?
Thomas: “Yeah. I don’t know, I would say. He’s not here, so others need to step up. It’s like when you miss a player for whatever reason, because leadership qualities are part of Sonny, bringing people together, the level they had, others will step up, others will shine a little bit more, because some of the players that were there before took the shine, if that makes sense. Of course, you can always use good people as Sonny.”
Sonny’s position was normally from the left – do you feel you know who your preferred candidate is in that position?
Thomas: “I think it’s fair to say that there is competition for that left-side role. I think everyone can see that. There are two things in it. We’ve played a fair amount of games, we play every third or fourth day, so there needs to be rotation as well. It’s also fair to say that there’s not been one player that put his foot down, ‘I’m playing that position’.”
Do you have an update on Dominic Solanke or Deki Kulusevski?
Thomas: “When they are ready to really be close to being involved in the squad, then I will give more information.”
When is Mathys Tel going to get the opportunity that he’s been pushing for?
Thomas: “That’s a good question – when I take the decision. We spoke about Mathys before. It’s been a toughish season for him, of course. The first thing was we can’t run away from that he was not involved in the Champions League squad, but the way he carries himself, the way he trains, his mindset is very good, and that’s also why I’ve used him in games, he also started mainly as a nine in the games he played this season, I’m very aware he also can play off the left, so it’s a little bit what kind of type and who you go with, and how many players can you go with on the side and stuff like that. The only thing that any player can do is to keep training well, keep doing everything they can to catch my eye, and make it very difficult for me when I take my decisions.”
How has Xavi reacted to being substitute four the last four games?
Thomas: “Xavi has trained fantastic. The last five or six times he really could train, very good attitude on the training pitch. I like that a lot. We played different games with different line-ups. I think Xavi was coming towards something better and better, and as long as he trains well, good attitude, then we’re getting closer and closer. I think it’s also fair to say that he’s coming on in all four games we’ve played.”
Any reason he didn’t start against Fulham?
Thomas: “It’s just different scenarios. We played with two strikers against PSG, both of them scored. I think it’s fair to say that. I will not say that we struggled to score, because we scored 23 goals. I think that’s quite a fairly high amount, that’s quite good, but we also played with the two in just a little bit different role against Man United. So, it’s just different personnel and who’s been a little bit in form and stuff like that.”
