Move over, Hamlet – there's a new Prince of Denmark in town.
Good old William Shakespeare knocked out a few decent lines, and some of them are still recycled from his most famous play more than 400 years later. Brentford head coach Thomas Frank will soon be in such high demand that Hamlet's great dilemma needs urgent adaptation down by Kew Bridge: To Bee, or not to Bee, that is the question.
Frank is one of only two Danish managers to have graced the Premier League – the other, Michael Laudrup, won the League Cup with Swansea – and it is surprising there have not been more because the boys Dane good. Beneath his rock-star hair and relentless positivity, Frank is a “driven” soul whose playing career of no fixed distinction has not stopped him from becoming one of Europe's most coveted coaches.
Brentford go to Brighton, the Premier League's other rising star, this weekend with both clubs knocking on the doors of Europe.
“I wouldn't say I'm enjoying it more because I didn't do anything special as a player,” said Frank. “But as a coach, I believe it gave me that inner drive to work hard, be disciplined and be consistent. Without those things, I would not have been able to do this job now. Because of all that, and my f****** crazy mind,” (he makes a lavish whirring gesture with his hand, like an industrial-speed turbine), “maybe you don't really enjoy it enough.
“We might beat Brighton and think, 'F***, this is great' and we might beat Manchester United and think 'Wow, this is fantastic', and with the relief of a great result you have a nice glass of red wine. But then, boom! The next challenge is always around the corner, the next goal. I don't know if I enjoy it enough because I'm so driven, I always want to take the next step.”
At 49 – and in such a stressful industry, he looks impossibly younger – Frank has learned to live by a code of being damned with faint praise.
When Brentford humiliated Manchester United 4-0, it was all about how bad the Red Devils were on the day. When 16-goal talisman Ivan Toney executed a brilliant heist at Manchester City, it was all about the damage the Bees had done to the title race.
And when they put Liverpool to the sword, everybody was too busy referring the ailing Liver bird to the vet to notice the Kop had been taken apart. Maybe, just maybe, all three results had something to do with the quality of Frank's team.
United will be looking forward to Brentford rocking up at Old Trafford on Wednesday night like poultry awaiting an audience with KFC godfather Colonel Harland Sanders. Frank took some time off during the international break because 16 of his players – SIXTEEN – were away on international duty, and a 17th, Rico Henry, must be close to an England call-up.
It's a source of immense pride to him that Brentford are churning out internationals on easily the smallest wage bill - £68 million, which is peanuts – in the Premier League. Sooner or later, one of the big clubs will come calling for him, but Frank is in no rush.
“Will I stay here forever? Probably not,” he conceded. “But I am so pleased to be working for Brentford. This is a proud moment in our history, for a club of our size.”
Frank is also mindful that the Bees stood rigidly behind him when he took over from Dean Smith five years ago and lost eight of his first 10 games in charge.
“I know what I want, I know how I want my teams to play, I'm very structured in my approach, very process-driven, very consistent and hard-working,” he said. "Put those virtues together and they give you a broad foundation to stand on when the wind blows and it's tough.
“I'm a positive person by nature and I've always preferred to dwell on the good aspects of a performance. But I could also fall back on my experience at Brondby – in some ways a bigger club than Brentford, with more pressure and expectation to do well - where I didn't win in my first eight games, so I have tested the system of patience twice!”
Hamlet, Laudrup, Frank... even the current Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard. Yep, those Danes know what they are doing, all right.
