Dean Smith said that recent events off the field were no excuse for his side’s lacklustre display in a 3-1 defeat at Griffin Park against Burnley this evening. The Bees found themselves three behind at the break thanks to fine strikes from Scott Arfield, Joey Barton and George Boyd. Alan Judge pulled one back ten minutes into the second-half but The Clarets held on to inflict a fourth straight defeat on Dean Smith’s side. Speaking after the match Dean said that the first-half performance was simply not good enough regardless of what was happening off the field.
“I am not making any excuses for that first-half performance,” said Dean. “We are a stronger team with James Tarkowski in it but the team that we put out should have dealt a lot better with the front two in the first-half. We had to deal a lot with diagonal balls but we dropped too deep and they reaped the rewards from our poor play really. The players were told at half-time what I felt in no uncertain terms but there was no point going off my head because they knew. The intensity that we played with in the second-half shows that the players can do it. We had some really good chances in the second-half. We opened them up and outpassed them but unfortunately didn’t take our chances. If we could have got that second-goal it would have been a holding on job for them.”
It was announced prior to kick-off that defender Tarkowski would be disciplined by the club for refusing to play against The Clarets after being the subject of a number of transfer bids. Dean admitted the previous few days had been unsettling for the club as a whole and felt that the former Oldham defender was making a mistake in trying to force a move.
“The club have issued their statement and we all stand behind that,” said Dean. “We are disappointed and when I spoke to James yesterday I told him that I thought he had made a mistake. However the club is about the team and not one person. He may regret it but I am not going to hang him out to dry. He is a young lad and I feel that he may have been misguided a bit but hopefully he comes through it. The last few days have to be unsettling because people’s heads do get turned but some people handle it better than others.”
The Bees are still searching for their first win of 2016 but Dean is sure that results and performances will come soon.
“Our results in January haven’t gone well for us but I have seen enough to know that these players are a match for anyone,” said Dean. “We spoke very quickly after the game there but it is not the time to debrief the game. We will talk about the game and then see what we can learn from them. Some of the performances that we have put in show that we can compete in this league. My ideas are coming across but it is tough to compete against these teams like Middlesbrough and Burnley. We will get there, we will be different to other teams and you will see more of that style from the second-half.”
Bees Player subscribers can view the full interview with Dean below