Thomas Frank labelled Kevin Schade a “shining star” after his hat-trick helped Brentford claim a dominant 4-1 victory over Leicester at the Gtech Community Stadium in the Premier League.
Ruud van Nistelrooy, who was in attendance ahead of his imminent start as Leicester manager, witnessed Facundo Buonanotte open the scoring for the Foxes before Yoane Wissa’s eighth of the season levelled the match.
Schade had set Wissa up for the earlier strike before he turned scorer with a neat finish into the bottom left corner, with his deft chip over Mads Hermansen doubling his tally before half-time.
The German attacker’s cool finish after a Nathan Collins through ball rounded off his hat-trick in the 59th minute.
“The shining star today was Kevin Schade,” Frank said full-time.
“I celebrated so much his first because I know how hard it’s been for him because he’s had so many injuries and he’s wanting to play in the team.
“He scored three and got a fantastic assist and looked like such a threat and was such a handful.”
The victory sees the Bees bounce back from last week’s goalless draw at Everton and continue their spectacular goal-scoring run, with 26 strikes in 13 matches.
“It was a very good performance and maybe the best this season,” Frank added.
“We controlled and dominated until the end of the game even though we didn’t know what we were going to face.
“I expected it to be more difficult than I think it looked in the end and you could see they changed their shape and were more defensive.
“We went 1-0 down and kept going and showed great bounce-back mentality.
“We scored four top goals, all of them incredible and were dangerous going forward.”
Leicester interim Ben Dawson failed to get points in his one match in charge following the dismissal of Steve Cooper following last week’s 2-1 defeat at home to Chelsea.
And he revealed the squad is set to meet up with new boss van Nistelrooy on Sunday.
“We just had the messages last night (from van Nistelrooy) when the appointment was made, he wished everyone good luck and the plan is to catch up tomorrow at the training ground,” Dawson said.
“It was a disappointing afternoon, I’m disappointed with other parts and some of the mistakes from us being down 3-1 at half-time. “
