Brentford manager Mark Warburton defended centre-back Harlee Dean after his mistake led to the penalty which earned Middlesbrough all three points at Griffin Park.
Dean allowed a long ball to drop over his head but it was never likely to travel through to keeper David Button, who could only bring down Patrick Bamford for the decisive moment of the 1-0 defeat.
Warburton refused to blame Dean and instead praised his response to the error.
The Bees boss said: “He was brave before it, he was brave after it and he never shied away from doing his job.
“You can’t ask players to get on the ball and be brave and not make a mistake. It was a poor decision, he knows that, and on this occasion it cost us. But he’ll be a better player for it and learn from it.”
In spite of the result, Warburton was pleased with his side’s display, particularly in the first half, but admitted they need to put away more of the chances they create.
He said: “I thought we were the better team in the first half, by quite a margin. We did everything right but score a goal, and one bad [defensive] decision has cost us the game.
“They’re the fine margins. It didn’t really fall our way but I thought overall it was a positive performance, there were long passages of really good play.
“We’re getting goals from different areas of the pitch but we do have to be more clinical.”
Warburton would not rule out more additions in the transfer window, but insisted if no more deals could be concluded he was happy with his squad, with Alan Judge, Lewis MacLeod and Alan McCormack still to come back from injury.
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This post was last modified on 31/01/2015