Brentford head coach has expressed his frustration at the defeat to Millwall at the weekend as he feels on any other day we’d have easily stuck four of five goals past them.
Heading to The Den for the clash against Neil Harris’ improving side, George Saville made it two from two as he struck in the opening minute of the game to give Millwall what would eventually become their winner, but having dominated possession on the day – even though equal chances on target fell to both sides – Smith was adamant on a different day the ball bounces another way and nestles in the back of the net for us.
Speaking to the Official Site as he met with the media following the game, a disappointed Smith explained that defeat certainly left a bad taste in the mouth knowing Yoann Barbet saw a goal scrubbed off and we hit the workwork and saw an effort cleared off the line, but ultimately we had to dust ourselves off and go again.
‘I can`t believe we lost today. I am disappointed with the result but really happy with the performance. Our supporters were great today; they could see how well we played. First-half we controlled the game without really troubling their keeper. We didn`t move it as well as we can and we weren`t quite aggressive enough in the final third. Second-half we drove forward in waves and, but for the woodwork and the people on the line we would have won. For the majority of the game they had 11 men in their own half. It is difficult to break teams down but we showed that we can. We had chances that, on another day, we score to win four or five.’
With the Millwall faithful in full voice having taken the boost with the early goal, Smith also knew the game could hardly have started worse for us especially when you add the injury to Andreas Bjelland who was substituted four minutes in.
‘I am gutted for Andreas as he has been magnificent over the last few months. He had a tight achilles in the warm-up; we spoke about it but he`s an experienced lad who knows his body and we felt he would be ok to start. Unfortunately, he has got injured inside the first minute and it has cost us the goal and ultimately the game. Ten minutes later we have had a goal disallowed, wrongly in my opinion. It certainly took them long enough to disallow it. I thought they were going to book him for over-celebrating.’
With the game leaving Brentford eight points off the Play Off spots with Cardiff City and Middlesbrough next up at Griffin Park, it’s now all eyes to Tuesday evening’s clash.
‘The next game has to be the most important. Today isn`t going to define season; we have three home games in a row now and we have to make sure that we win them all. It is easy to separate the result from the performance as everybody knows that we have played well. We have got beaten today because one of our in-form players has got injured at an in-opportune time and we`ve had a goal chalked off. That`s the only reason we got beaten today.’
