Brentford boss Thomas Frank hailed his side’s mentality despite conceding a late winner against Fulham to lose 3-2 in the South West London derby. 

The Bees had fought back from 2-0 down to level the scores at 2-2 thanks to goals from Christian Nøgaard and Ivan Toney only to see their efforts undone by a last-minute header from Aleksandar Mitrović. 

But Frank was full of praise for the way his side battled back after goals from Bobby Decordova-Reid and Joao Palhinha had put the Cottagers two to the good after just 20 minutes, and believes their mental strength will put them in good stead for the rest of the season. 

“I think what we showed to come back in this game is extraordinary, 2-0 down, fighting back,” said Frank. 

“This group of players, their mentality is extraordinary.  

“The determination to keep going, the cool heads to keep doing the right thing throughout.

“I think it was a 2-2 game. It happens when you go for the goal, sometimes you lose.  

“If it was 2-2 coming back from 2-0 it would have been a fantastic result in many ways. 

“I think if we keep going with this mentality, we hopefully win the next one.” 

Despite accentuating the positives from the defeat, Frank admitted that is was nevertheless difficult to lose in such dramatic circumstances. 

But the Dane reflected that sometimes Serbian marksman Mitrović can be too much to handle for any side. 

He said: “Football is so painful when you lose in the last minute.  

“I thought it would have been a much more tight, quite boring derby but what a game for the neutral – it must have been a fantastic game to watch.  

“We fully deserved to get back to 2-2 and then it’s heartbreaking to see the last one go in. 

“It’s a bit of quality from Fulham, Mitrovic knows what he does, unfortunately, David [Raya] couldn’t save the last one.  

“Every opponent knows what he’ll try to do and he still scores goals because even if you try to close him down, if it’s a perfect delivery, perfect position he will get a good header. 

“Except from maybe the first 20 minutes and the last five, seven minutes, I’m very pleased with the performance.”