Dean Smith felt today’s match against Sheffield Wednesday was a game of two halves as his team were denied the three points by an injury time Sam Hutchinson header at Griffin Park. Wednesday dominated the first-half and would have been out of sight but for some inspired goalkeeping by Daniel Bentley and wasteful finishing. After the break The Bees came into the game more and took the lead when Lasse Vibe charged down Keiren Westwood’s attempted clearance. It looked like that would secure a third straight home win but Hutchinson’s injury-time header rescued a point for The Owls which Dean admitted was tough to take.
“There are a lot of emotions going through my head at the moment because first-half we were very, very poor,” said Dean, speaking to Bees Player after the game. “If somebody had offered me a point at half-time I would have ripped their hands off but we are disappointed to concede so late in the game. We had chances in the second-half but we couldn’t have been any worse than we were in the first-half. There were basic errors all over the pitch, people weren’t talking, people were getting too tight and closing on their own. We were very bad and they were very good and you can’t afford to do that against good players. The positive was to get in at 0-0 because they should have been out of sight with the chances they had. They didn’t take them and we regrouped at half-time.”
After going in level at the break, Dean said he told his side they needed to be more organised and press higher up the pitch. The reward for that higher press came nine minutes after the break as Vibe charged down Westwood’s clearance for his first goal of the season. Dean said The Bees had done their homework on Westwood and thought that they could get joy with a higher pressing game.
“We said that if we were going to press we needed to press together and get higher up the pitch,” said Dean. “We got closer to them, got higher up the pitch and reaped our rewards with Lasse’s goal. Lasse’s goal was a case of us pressing together and we got higher up the pitch to press. We knew that Keiren Westwood had a long kick and we were a bit worried about him putting it in behind us. You only have to remember Yoann Barbet’s red card last season. In the games that we previewed he has been kicking it a long way so we probably played a little bit deeper than we would have liked to. We played as individuals in that first-half but second-half we got closer to them and did a lot better.”
The Sky Bet Championship now goes into a two-week break for the latest round of international fixtures. The break in fixtures gives Dean a chance to get to work with the players on the training ground and he said there is one key area that he wants to improve ahead of the trip to Brighton and Hove Albion on 10 September.
“Our use of the ball has to be better,” said Dean. “I can’t question the spirit, the fight, or the endeavour but we have to play smarter. It is something that they do in training every week and it was the polar opposite to what we did at Rotherham United last week where I thought we were very good on the ball. We will work on that over the next few weeks. It was a surprise because you see them in training every day and they are good on the ball. Sometimes it is about having that belief.”