Thomas Frank has confirmed that new signing Mikkel Damsgaard will make his debut and start the Bees’ Carabao Cup clash with Colchester United. 

The Danish midfielder signed for Brentford from Sampdoria this summer and, after being named on the bench for the 4-0 win over Manchester United, will be in the starting XI when we travel to the JobServe Community Stadium on Tuesday.

“He will start, so we’re looking forward to that,” Thomas confirmed when asked about Mikkel. "That’s part of a bigger plan for him. 

"Obviously we will make some changes but we will put a very strong team out there. I think it's very clear how serious we've been [in this competition] over the last two years.  

“Maybe the two most important years in the Club's recent history - the promotion season in a very tight COVID schedule and the first season in the Premier League - we made history by reaching the semi-final in the first year and then the quarter-final [the season after] is the next best.  

"That shows how serious we are about this competition and we want to do very well.” 

He added: “The thing you need to look into is how you make sure that your team perform in every competition - the Premier League, the Carabao Cup, and the FA Cup. 

"It's a combination of freshness, putting the best possible team out there, and putting some players out who need minutes to perform, but the end goal is to get to the next round. 

"I could easily choose the first XI, but I don't think that will benefit us in the other competitions.

“But by putting a very strong team out there, and hopefully it's enough to beat Colchester, I think we tried to put our money out on both competitions.”

The second round of last season’s Carabao Cup saw Forest Green travel to the Gtech Community Stadium and take a 1-0 lead, before the Bees eventually turned things around and won 3-1.

And Thomas expects a similarly tough game from another League Two side, but is looking forward to the challenge.

“We expect everything we saw from Forest Green last year. We expected it when they came and they did very well," Thomas said.

“I expect a very tough cup tie against Colchester; a team that plays relatively direct, will focus a lot on the second balls, and try to play behind us. That aspect is what we need to handle well. 

"I expect us to dominate the game, but we just watched the Ipswich game back against them [in the last round], where they dominated the game and lost 1-0. That's cup football. 

“We're looking forward to the challenge.”