Brentford midfield player Alex Pritchard said he never even considered missing a vital penalty in last night’s 3-1 win away to Nottingham Forest.
The Bees had dominated the first half and led 2-0 at the break thanks to goals from Jon Toral and Andre Gray.
But Forest made changes at the break, bringing top scorer Britt Assombalonga on, and looked set to put The Bees under pressure.
The wind was taken out of the home side’s sails when Gray went down under the challenge of Kelvin Wilson seconds after the restart and referee Mark Haywood awarded a penalty.
Alex stepped up and lashed it down the middle to give Brentford a 3-0 lead and although Forest pulled one back, Brentford had done enough to get the win.
The midfield player, on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, said he never considered missing it and knew it was a big moment in the game.
Brentford have had problems with penalties in recent years, failing to convert a large percentage of their spot kicks.
Alex said he wasn’t aware of that and hoped it would no longer be an issue.
“I said I wanted to be on penalties,” he said, speaking to Bees Player after the win.
“We got one today and I put it away.
“I am happy with that.
“I didn’t know about any problem with penalties but hopefully it won’t happen again.
“I look at the goalkeeper; I do whatever comes in to my head.
“When you take penalties you have to be confident, you have to expect to score, you can’t think about missing.
“I have missed a couple in the past when I have thought about missing.
“It was a big penalty - if I miss it, it is still 2-0 the crowd gets up.
“The first thing that came to my mind was that I would score and I did.”
Alex said Brentford dominated with the ball and played some good football in their win.
Forest had not won in nine in all competitions before last night and Alex said The Bees knew they had to keep the home side’s confidence low and quieten a raucous crowd.
“We came to a team like this and a stadium like this and we dominated with the ball,” he said.
“We weren’t sloppy with it, we concentrated and we played some good football.
“We could have won by more but we are happy with the result.
“We knew it would be tough, we studied them and knew they hadn’t had good results of late.
“We felt their confidence would be down.
“We kept on top, we pushed hard, did things right and got our rewards.
“It is about keeping the players down and also the crowd.
“The stadium erupts at the start of the game and we kept the ball well, quietened the crowd and that takes confidence out of the players.
“We did really well tonight.”
Brentford went ahead just past the quarter hour when Toral lashed in and Gray capitalised on a poor back pass from Eric Lichaj to make it two before half time.
The Bees could have been further ahead before half time but Alex said they came out in the second half looking to make sure of the win.
“To go in 2-0 up was crucial,” he said.
“But it was like 0-0 coming out after half time, if they get a goal they will get on top and we might stop dropping off, anything can happen.
“We knew we had to keep pressing for a third goal and we got it.
“They scored a good goal late in the game but I thought we shut them down very well.
“We could have been further ahead at half time but we weren’t so we spoke about it, came out and pushed for the third.”
Full post-match video reaction from Alex Pritchard is available here for Bees Player subscribers.