Thomas Frank believes his Brentford side were "close to perfection" as they earned their first away win of the season with a thumping 5-0 win at lowly Southampton.

Kevin Schade opened the scoring for the Bees early on, before a double from Bryan Mbeumo, including a penalty, put the result way out of reach for Saints.

The hosts' misery was compounded by injury-time goals from Keane Lewis-Potter and Yoane Wissa, ending the Bees' nine-game winless run on their top-flight travels (D2 L7). 

Brentford's five-star display was also their biggest winning margin in the Premier League, and their biggest league triumph since beating Preston North End 5-0 in April 2021. 

Frank's side were more than worthy of their win, accumulating a mammoth expected goals (xG) total of 4.23 from their 20 efforts, restricting Saints to just one shot on target. 

"I think that was very close to perfection", Frank told BBC Sport when asked about his side's display at St. Mary's. 

"We gave nothing away throughout 90 minutes, defended extremely well and we create chance after chance after chance.

"It could easily have been more than five. I’m extremely proud of this performance.

"I don’t think people understand how difficult it is to go to a game like this and be as dominant as we were and get the job done in the way we did."

Frank also praised goal-scoring duo Mbeumo and Wissa, with the pair continuing their fine starts to the season with another impressive display on Saturday. 

Mbeumo has now scored in 10 Premier League matches for Brentford this season, with only Mohamed Salah (14) and Alexander Isak (11) netting more across games in the competition this term.

Wissa, meanwhile, netted his 36th top-flight goal for Brentford, becoming the joint-top scorer for the Bees in the competition (alongside Ivan Toney, also 36). 

He has been directly involved in 18 goals in his last 22 league games (14 goals, four assists), as many as in his previous 64 appearances in the competition.

"You just run a little bit harder, you’re looking a bit more for your good mate," Frank said of Mbeumo and Wissa's blossoming relationship on the pitch. 

"They’ve got a very good relationship on and off the pitch and I think you see that with the goals today."

Ivan Juric, meanwhile, is still searching for his first win as Southampton boss, with the Croatian losing all three games since taking over from Russell Martin. 

Saints have won just six points from their opening 20 Premier League matches this season (W1 D3 L16), equalling the worst points tally by a side at this stage of the campaign in the competition (Sunderland in 2005-06).

Juric labelled Saturday's mauling as a "total disaster", adding that any promise from his match in charge against West Ham has since completely evaporated. 

"We are angry. [I’m] disappointed with myself that I haven’t changed the situation in these two weeks. It was a really, really bad day," Juric told BBC Sport. 

"After West Ham, I had good feelings, but today I saw too much difficulty. It was a total disaster. They were much better than us. I can only say sorry to our fans because they don’t deserve this.

"We now have more days for work, to understand the ways to play, what we can change to be better. It’s obvious that in some situations we are not ready."