Jon Toral said he was ready to fight for his place in the Brentford starting XI after making his first Football League start in the win over Derby County.

Jon, on loan from Arsenal for the 2014/15 season, started in the Sky Bet Championship for the first time as The Bees beat Derby at Griffin Park on Saturday.

He had previously started in a Capital One Cup tie against Fulham and made six substitute appearances before that first league start.

Jon, speaking to Bees Player earlier this week, said he knew the competition for places would be fierce when he arrived and he knew everyone in the squad would fight for a starting spot.

He said if everyone was doing that and working together, The Bee would continue to get good results.

“I am very happy here,” said Jon.

“Everyone is helping me a lot and I feel part of the group.

“The level is very high; I knew that before I came here.

“I will fight for a place, like all my team mates will.

“We all know that we need to keep our levels up or someone can come off the bench and do better.

“We need to work hard as a team; work together and we will get good performances.”

Brentford travel to The City Ground tonight to face Nottingham Forest in their latest Championship fixture.

Forest have not won in nine in all competitions and are tenth in the table – they are two places ahead of The Bees but only on goal difference.

Jon said Brentford would look to win the game and if they reached a high level they were capable of getting the points.

“All games away from home in The Championship will be tough, this one will,” he said.

“We know that if we do things right we can win the game.

“We need to get ourselves right and we can get the win.

“We are football players and want to win every game.

“We have to show our best.

“If we do that, we can beat anyone.”

Jon said he really enjoyed his first league start, against Derby.

It came a week after he had come on as a substitute to score his first professional goal in a 3-1 defeat to Bolton Wanderers.

Derby had the better of the opening stages and went ahead when Chris Martin scored.

But Brentford improved as the first half wore on and equalised early in the second through Andre Gray.

Stuart Dallas won it for The Bees with a stoppage time goal, a victory that knocked Derby off the top of the table.

“It was very good to be part of the starting line-up for the first time in a league game,” said Jon.

“I was very happy and really enjoyed it.

“I came here to play football and enjoy it.

“It was a tough game, we knew they were top of the league before the game and it would be tough to take the three points.

“We feel strong at home with our crowd.

“After the disappointing result at Bolton we knew we could win the game and we did that.”

Jon said Brentford Manager Mark Warburton had told his team at half time they needed to up their level to win the game and they built on the momentum of Gray’s goal four minutes after the break.

“In the first 15 minutes we lacked a bit of rhythm,” said Jon.

“We found it and especially after half time we came out strong.

“We proved that by making it 2-1.

“It was a great response to being 1-0 down.

“The gaffer said we were doing alright but it wasn’t good enough.

“We needed a bit extra and we found that in the second half.

“The momentum was with us after the goal.

“We knew we could win the game.”

Bees Player subscribers can see a full video interview with Jon Toral here.