Dean Smith looked back on his first West London derby as Brentford Head Coach ruing the decision by the linesman to disallow a goal late in the second half by substitute Jota. With the scores level, Jota’s header could have seen Brentford take all three points, but the goal was ruled out incorrectly for offside.
“The disappointing part is that Jota’s scores a really good goal, which wasn’t offside,” said Dean. “I think from there, if we go 3-2 up, the momentum is with us and we’d see the game out comfortably. It wasn’t to be, the linesman flagged, and a draw ended up a fair result.”
The new Head Coach was pleased by his side’s application in front of a sell out travelling support of 5,000.
“I thought it was a very entertaining game,” said Dean. “The first half was pretty even but second half I thought we really started to take the game to them, showed some really slick passing moves and could have probably taken the lead. It was disappointing they took the lead against the run of play. I’m pleased with the character the players showed to get the set piece goal. It was a great ball in by Jake Bidwell – and he put a few of those in – and a good header from Jack [O’Connell].
“They finished the game a little bit brighter then ourselves. It was certainly end to end. It showed that the players knew what the occasion was for the supporters and tried all out to go and win the game.”
A double substitution for Smith paid off with Brentford 2-1 down, as John Swift probed openings in the Fulham defence and Jota having a goal wrongly disallowed for offside.
“That was one of the most pleasing things,” said Dean. “When you look at the bench today it was a very strong one. That’s something we can be proud of as a club at the moment and you can go and change games from benches like that and I thought they made a really good impact when they came on.”
You can view the entire interview on Bees PlayerHD below: