In the first-ever top-flight meeting between the sides, Brentford were defeated 2-0 by Tottenham Hotspur in Thursday evening's encounter at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The Bees unfortunately shot themselves in the foot just 12 minutes in when Sergi Canos bundled the ball into his own net following a corner, and Spurs doubled their advantage after half-time when Heung-min Son provided the finishing touch to a brilliant counter-attack.

Brentford head coach Thomas Frank addressed the media after the match — here are his most noteworthy quotes.

On the overall performance

This was a match in which Brentford struggled to lay a finger on their opponents without the ball and didn't hurt them enough with it, mustering just two shots on target.

Nonetheless, Frank was at least pleased with the intent shown by his players and sympathised with them given the reality that things didn't fall their way on the night.

"I'm quite satisfied with the performance," he said. "I thought we were brave and tried to build with the ball. We lacked the final top quality to create a lot of good chances. We lost to the better team on the day."

However, and despite the element of misfortune involved when Canos bundled the ball into his own net, Frank was far from happy to see his side fall behind in such a manner and believes that to have been the crucial moment in the match.

"If you want to win a game like this you can never, ever, concede a set-piece goal. I know we were unfortunate because Pontus headed into Sergi but we need to see what we can learn from that."

On individuals

There were periods of the match when Brentford were forced to soak up a great deal of pressure and, were it not for a brilliant performance from shot-stopper Alvaro Fernandez in goal, the scoreline could've been much worse for the Bees.

Frank was full of praise for the goalkeeper, who was installed into the first-team unexpectedly early due to the injury sustained by usual first-choice David Raya in October.

"The big save he had in the beginning of the second half kept us in the game. He's growing and that's very important."

He was less pleased with the exploits of players further up the pitch and stressed the need to examine why things never really got ticking in those areas.

"We got into good positions but didn't play forward enough for whatever reason. I thought this was better in the second half but I need to look back on that."

On the harsh realities of the top-flight

The scoreline tells the story of a largely comfortable victory for Tottenham, and it was to an extent — but it was also a match of fine margins, and too many of those failed to fall Brentford's way for them to come away with anything on the night.

Frank knows that defeats of this ilk are part and parcel of being a newly promoted side in the Premier League, but was also keen to ensure his players learn from the result.

"Especially with the second one, but in general we need to do better. It was top quality from Tottenham but we switched off for half a second and didn't track the run and then it's 2-0, game over.

"We win or we learn," Frank concluded. "We need to recover quick, have a short session on Saturday, and then we'll be ready for Leeds on Sunday."