Brentford manager Thomas Frank has insisted that he believes his side will be fully prepared for the resumption of the campaign, as the Bees look to cement their play-off place starting against rivals Fulham next weekend.

Frank’s side are in a strong position to go on and secure at least a top six finish come the end of the campaign, with the Bees sitting in fourth place with a five point cushion over seventh placed Bristol City, while they are ten points adrift of the automatic promotion places.

The Bees will be looking to get up and running with some consistent performances and results, and they showed their quality by securing a win at Arsenal in one of their warm-up matches ahead of the campaign resuming – and that means confidence should be high.

Quiz: How old are each of these 14 current Brentford players?

Speaking to Sky Sports after Brentford’s 2-0 defeat in a warm-up match against Watford on Saturday, Frank insisted his players will be ready to show their best form right from the start against Fulham, in what could be a vital game for both sides.

He said: “We need to be (ready) and we are. I’m confident, I think we have had the time to get them up to speed of course you would like to play more friendlies to get more match minutes into to everybody but that’s the way it is.

“Physically they show they are in a good place, we know they have been training hard now its just about that final sharpness and quality on the day that will come with more and more minutes, so that will come, so we’re ready and we’re looking forward to it.

“Yeah I know we will be (ready for the Fulham clash) we are all looking forward to the season starting again and what’s better than to start against Fulham a local derby and against two top sides that want to attack. So, we’re looking forward to it and we’ll be ready.”

The verdict

It will be a very interesting last few weeks of the campaign for Brentford and they will be aiming to wrap up their place in the play-offs as soon as possible, and whether they can do that could well depend on the result they manage to pick up at Fulham in their first game back in action.

A win for the Bees would move them to within just a single point of their third placed rivals, and put a serious dent in Fulham’s hopes of catching either West Brom or Leeds United, but a defeat would leave Frank’s side potentially vulnerable to a cluster of teams bellow chasing the play-off places.

Perhaps having a derby game as the first game back will be something of an advantage for the Bees, who should be able to fully motivate themselves for the fixture despite the absence of a crowd inside the stadium – and Frank will be hopeful his confidence in his sides preparations will come to fruition.