Dean Smith wants to take some serious momentum into the off season and beyond as his Bees side prepare for two home games in four days. After three straight league wins, in which Brentford have racked up nine goals, The Bees return to West London to take on Bristol City and Cardiff City on Saturday and Tuesday respectively. While on paper it doesn’t appear that there is much to play for in the run up to the end of the season, Dean said it will mean a lot to the players and staff if they can end the season well, starting with the visit of Lee Johnson’s Robins this Saturday.

“The lads are targeting the top ten,” said Dean, speaking to Bees Player ahead of Saturday’s match. “For me it is smaller targets: I am just looking at Saturday and then Tuesday and then Saturday. Lee Johnson has done a great job at Bristol City since he has gone in there. They have scored a lot of goals so it will be a tough game for us. We want to build on the week that we had last week and there is no better chance than to have two games at home. It is nice to have some momentum going into the following season. We would like to finish off the season on a high and to do that we would like to keep performing and get results. The week that we have had on the training ground has been very good. I have not seen any let up so far.”

The Bees will be without Alan Judge for Saturday and the rest of the season after he sustained a serious leg injury in Saturday’s win over Ipswich Town. The Irish midfielder is Brentford’s top scorer this season with 14 goals and tops the Sky Bet Championship assists chart with 11. A difficult week for Alan was tempered slightly, earlier today, as he was included in the three man shortlist for the Championship Player of the Year award alongside Burnley's Andre Gray and Fulham's Ross McCormack, recognition which Dean feels is richly deserved.

“I went in to visit Alan Judge last Sunday and he was obviously a bit down,” said Dean. “He had his family around him which was really good. The way that Alan is, and the way that he looks at things, he was down, but now he will look on the bright side and think about how quickly he can come back and how strong he can come back. I know that Alan said he has had so many people phone him and contact him and he has been overwhelmed by the support he has had from everybody. We don’t want to put a timescale on his return.

“He has been talismanic for us this season and I am sure that he would have been in Martin O’Neill’s plans in the summer. He has been integral to everything that we have done. He is top of the assists chart for the Championship and he is on the goalscoring chart as well. It has been his most productive season. At times we have been a bit too reliant on him but we have come through that period but I am really pleased that he has been recognised for what he is doing on the pitch.”

Another player who will be unavailable for the rest of the season is Leandro Rodriguez, who has returned to Everton at the end of his loan spell. The striker picked up a hamstring injury in the win over Nottingham Forest and, with Marco Djuricin and Philipp Hofmann returning, the decision was taken not to extend his deal at Griffin Park.

“Leandro Rodriguez came in when we needed something different up front,” said Dean. “He played against Blackburn Rovers which was a tough game for him against two big centre-halves. He got the Hamstring injury against Nottingham Forest and unfortunately he has not recovered to be ready for this Saturday or Tuesday. We had to make the decision with six games to go whether it would be worth keeping him. We are thankful to Everton for lending us Leandro. He fitted in well with us and he meant the other forwards at the club had the bit between their teeth as well. We brought him in as an emergency loan because Philipp Hofmann was injured and Marco Djuricin was out. Marco is back now and Philipp is back training now. Those two add to the numbers in the front line now.”

Bees Player subscribers can watch the full interview with Dean below