Dean Smith hopes that Brentford’s quality on the ball will be enough to get the three points at The New York Stadium on Saturday but added that they won’t be afraid to battle it out against The Millers. The Bees travel to South Yorkshire on the back of two straight wins and clean sheets in the past week. It was a disappointing trip to Rotherham for The Bees last season, after a 2-1 defeat, and Dean is looking for a much better performance this time around.
“If it is anything like last season it will be a really tough game,” said Dean, speaking to Bees Player ahead of the match. “They were right in our faces from the start and we didn’t play very well. It was quite volatile. We feel that we are on a decent run of form. We finished last season really well but we didn’t start the season well at Huddersfield. The last couple of games have been good and we will take that into the game at Rotherham and hopefully come away with the right result. I hope we don’t need our battling qualities. I hope our quality on the ball comes through but, if we have to, I think we have shown that we can mix it as well. There is a lot of spirit in the camp, a lot of battling qualities, but a lot of very good footballers as well. Whatever game comes at us, we are well equipped to handle it.
After defeat on the opening day of the season to Huddersfield Town, Dean Smith’s side bounced back with consecutive wins over Ipswich Town and Nottingham Forest earlier this week to move into the top six of the early Sky Bet Championship table. Dean felt those wins had put a real spring in the step of the players involved, despite the tiredness, and was also pleased that a number of other players were able to get game time in a friendly with a Chelsea XI on Wednesday.
“After any tough games, like we have had, you are tired but when you have won two on the spin, and kept a clean sheet in both, you come in with a little spring in your step,” said Dean. “The players certainly had that today but they know, having already had three tough games in this league, that it will be tough again on Saturday against Rotherham United. As soon as the game finished on Tuesday the lads had to recover as quickly as possible to get ready for Saturday. The lads who didn’t play, played some minutes in a game against Chelsea yesterday so we are getting a full complement of players. There are some that are still injured but they are getting close to match fitness and being able to choose from a bigger squad is always nice.”
Despite the two wins Dean is still looking to add to his squad and, with the end of the transfer window now just two weeks away, hopes that deals will be concluded sooner rather than later.
“We are still moving, we are still shopping, and still hoping to get a couple of bargains,” said Dean. “If we do we will be really pleased. The market, as we have spoken about before, has been tough but we feel that we are getting there and we might have progress. Ideally we don’t want to leave it until the end window, ideally we would like to get some bodies in early next week.”