Dean Smith felt his side lacked quality in the final third as they suffered a first defeat in three league matches following a 1-0 reversal to Rotherham United this afternoon. Despite dominating possession and territory, The Bees were undone by a first-half Danny Ward goal as The Millers picked up the three points at The AESSEAL New York Stadium. Speaking after the game, Dean felt his side needed to create more chances given their possession but was happy with the performance overall.
“I thought we were in control of the game,” said Dean, speaking to Bees Player at full-time. “We became a little bit open in the first-half but second-half they were happy to take what they had. They banked in, we got round them a few times, but we didn’t make the most of those chances. We were left wondering how we didn’t win. The better team lost but that happens in football and I can only be pleased with the performance which was very good. We had the cross where Scott Hogan was wrongly flagged offside, Emmanuel Ledesma’s shot, and a couple of free headers that we put wide. Our touch in and around the box let us down at times. We had enough ball in and around the box but our quality let us down.”
The only goal of the game came just after the half-hour as Danny Ward latched onto Paul Taylor’s through ball to slot home past Daniel Bentley. There were suspicions of offside surrounding the goal but Dean felt the Rotherham man was onside. However, he was disappointed with the way that his side failed to get organised from the throw in.
“He was just onside I think,” said Dean. “We emptied out the midfield a bit too early. For me it should have been a free-kick for us. Scott Hogan gets fouled, they get a throw-in and they end up scoring from that throw in which they shouldn’t. We had enough time and organisation to make sure that they don’t. Emotions sometimes take over in football: Scott was annoyed that he didn’t get the free-kick as was Ryan Woods. We ended up getting played through and they scored.”
Today’s defeat brought the curtain down on a week that has seen The Bees take six points, and keep two clean sheets, from three matches. With a week to go until Brentford are back in action, Dean believes there are a lot of positives to take from the last seven days ahead of the visit of Sheffield Wednesday to Griffin Park next Saturday.
“We have to talk about the positives and talk about how we stamp out the negatives,” said Dean. “There were enough positives to go on and some of the play was very good. It has been a good week in total. We had two battling performances at home and a controlling performance here that we should have won but didn’t. It is a tough league but if we concentrate on playing the type of football we played today then we will be alright.”