Dean Smith gave his reaction to the defeat against league leaders Middlesbrough, in a match that Brentford can count themselves unfortunate not to at least take a point from.
“We probably shaded it marginally,” said Dean. “I thought we started the game excellently for the first 20 minutes and then at the end there they were hanging on as well. It was a good performance from us and that’s all you can ask for.
“I’ve just said to the players ‘don’t buy into this Middlesbrough hoodoo because they are a team that’s top of the league and you’ve played really well against them and performed really well and if you do that against other teams you’ll win’.”
Brentford started superbly, rocking Boro with a series of attacking movements that left them second best in the opening exchanges.
“Against teams like that you’ve got to take your chances,” said Dean. “Unfortunately we didn’t do that, the goalkeeper’s made some good saves as well. People were saying because of their clean sheet record you can’t breach them but we managed to do that but just didn’t put the ball in back of the net, which is the important thing.
“They’ve proved to themselves that they can be more than a match for anybody in this league at any given time.”
Boro scored their second haf winner due to a rare error from Bees goalkeeper David Button.
“David’s made a mistake,” said Dean. “The conditions were a bit swirly and he’s gone for the punch rather than the catch; it’s unfortunate for him and unfortunate for us as we didn’t deserve [the loss].”
You can view the full interview with Dean on Bees PlayerHD below: