Brentford Manager Mark Warburton said his side paid the price for two second half mistakes against Cardiff City.

The Bees were beaten 2-1 by their South Wakes visitors at Griffin Park yesterday.

They held a first half lead thanks to an Andre Gray goal and were completely dominant before a collision between David Button and Harlee Dean gave Federico Macheda a simple job to equalise.

Cardiff then snatched the lead against the run of play when Alex Revell got on to a long ball, noticed Button had started to come, stopped and was stranded on the edge of the penalty area and lifted it in.

The visitors had two men sent off in the later stages but held on to get a win.

Mark said Cardiff tried to slow the game down and his team had to raise the tempo.

He said they did that in the first half without creating chances and were worth their lead before they made two second half errors.

“Their intentions were clear from the outset,” said Mark.

“They wanted to slow the tempo down and the intensity, it was our job to raise that.

“After the first ten minutes we did it well.

“We didn’t create loads of chances in the first half but we were 1-0 up and Stuart Dallas had one cleared off the line.

“We looked good for the 1-0 lead and then made two mistakes in the second half, it was as simple as that.

“For the first Butts went to claim it and it bounced off Harlee’s head, which was bizarre.

“There was some indecision for the second goal.

“You pay the price at this level.

“Up until that point David Button had been outstanding and we won’t need to pick him up.”

Mark said he was disappointed with the way his team chased the game in the later stages.

Kadeem Harris was sent off and Macheda followed soon after leaving Cardiff with nine men, who were all behind the ball in the last minutes.

Mark said his team were too keen to lift the ball in to the penalty area.

“The last ten minutes was disappointing,” said the Brentford boss.

“We were happy to throw the ball in to the box, where they were camped.

“You have to show a bit more quality in and around the box to get the rewards.

“We were losing at home in a game we dominated.

“The players were frustrated and recognised the importance of the match.

“We will learn from it and we have to recognise what we do better.”

Brentford missed the chance to close the gap on some of the teams above them with the loss.

They are still sixth in the table but are now seven points off the top.

“We are in a good place,” said Mark.

“Today is disappointing but if we had given a poor performance it would be painful.

“Today we did a lot of things right but didn’t have enough quality in the final third.

“We lacked a bit of quality with the final ball.

“Irrespective of the men being sent off we dominated the game and had a lot of ball in the final third.”

Bees Player subscribers can see full post-match reaction from Mark Warburton here.