Yoane Wissa struck twice as Brentford maintained their unbeaten home record with victory over Bournemouth in a chaotic, end-to-end thriller.
Twice the Bees trailed on Saturday, and twice they struck back, before Wissa converted one of the best team goals of the season so far to earn the hosts a 3-2 win.
But brilliant as the Bees were going forward, Thomas Frank will know his defence were exploited far too easily at times, and are still without a clean sheet.
Yet Frank was focused on his side’s thrilling offensive play after scoring a joint league high 22 goals after 11 games – especially after their heartbreaking late defeat by Fulham on Monday.
‘I’m a positive guy, so I’m more focused on the positives. We’ve scored [the joint-most] goals in the league which is incredible. That is insanely good, people maybe don’t understand how good that is.
Yoane Wissa netted a brace in a five-goal thriller as Brentford got the better of Bournemouth
Wissa’s chipped winner over Kepa saw Brentford maintain their unbeaten home record
Thomas Frank noted Brentford are the league’s joint top scorers but must improve defensively
‘But I’m also very ambitious. I would love to win 3-0 and there’s something we need to look into.’
He added: ‘Great reaction [to the Fulham defeat] because few games are perfect. This one wasn’t either.
‘The bounce-back mentality was unbelievably good, maybe more than if we’d won 3-0 because we played bad in the first 20 minutes, Bournemouth were better than us.’
Andoni Iraola agreed, insisting: ‘Its a hard one for us because I’m quite happy with the performance, especially the first half we were clearly the better team but we couldn’t make the difference.
‘I think our performance deserved much, much more today.’
Bournemouth dominated the opening phases, with Ryan Christie and Antoine Semenyo both coming close to an early opener.
Marco Senesi then wasted the best chance so far, somehow firing over from two yards on 15 minutes, but two minutes later Sepp van den Berg offered a gift the visitors couldn’t spurn.
His misjudged backpass was intercepted by Evanilson, who rounded Mark Flekken before scoring his third in as many games.
But that only ignited Brentford, and after a Vitaly Janelt effort, Wissa drew his side level on 27 minutes.
Bournemouth couldn’t clear their lines after a near post flick-on from Mathias Jensen’s long throw, leaving Wissa free to float a lofted header beyond Kepa Arrizabalaga into the back of the net.
Fans slow to their seats for the second half were then punished after a five-minute flurry that saw both teams score in a scintillating restart.
First, Justin Kluivert made it 2-1 after a gorgeous one-two with Lewis Cook exposed Brentford’s poor defending on 49 minutes, converting calmly at the near post.
But Brentford went straight down the other end from kick-off, Mikkel Damsgaard latching onto a beautifully-weighted ball from Bryan Mbeumo to equalise 60 seconds later.
Evanilson had given Bournemouth the lead as they dominated the early stages of the match
Wissa levelled for the Bees in the 27th minute as the hosts came back into the match
Bournemouth regained the lead after half-time through a strike by Justin Kluivert
Mikkel Damsgaard swiftly levelled for the hosts before Wissa scored Brentford’s winner
‘I don’t think we even had a chance [to shut up shop],’ admitted Iraola.
‘Everyone knows they score a lot of goals from kick-off. They went long but you have to win the second ball. We didn’t, and they had the chance to score.’
Brentford then took the lead for the first time after some magical approach play from Janelt. After a delightful dummy for Keane Lewis-Potter, Janelt curled one into Wissa’s path to contemptuously chip Kepa for his ninth contribution in five home games on 58 minutes.
Enes Unal came agonisingly close to a 97th-minute equaliser, the crossbar saving Brentford further late heartbreak at the Gtech Community Fortress.
