Bees defender Egan sets target

Brentford’s John Egan has set a top-10 finish as their minimum target for the rest of the campaign.

The Bees are aiming to record a hat-trick of Championship victories for the first time this season when they travel to Ipswich on Saturday.

Egan and his team-mates are currently 15 points adrift of the play-off places, but the Bees centre-back insists there is no lack of incentive for their remaining fixtures.

“The motivation’s always there to win every single game,” Egan told West London Sport.

“Obviously we’d like to be closer to the play-offs and I believe we should be closer.

“All we can do is focus on each game and trying to pick up three points every time and see how high that can take us. We want to at least break into that top 10.

“It’s back-to-back wins for the first time in a while, so that’s brilliant and if we can keep building on these for the rest of the season I’m sure we can move up the table.”

Brentford head to Portman Road without skipper Harlee Dean, who is serving the second and final game of his suspension for amassing 10 bookings.

But Egan – who scored both goals when the Bees won 2-0 against Ipswich earlier in the season – is confident that others will step up to the plate again in the absence of his defensive colleague.

He added: “Harlee’s obviously a loss – he’s a leader and a very good player. Whoever steps onto the pitch has got to take up the mantle and galvanise the team.

“I think we saw a lot of that against Rotherham – the boys were driving each other on and battling for the cause.

“It’ll be another tough game at Ipswich, but we’ll go there full of belief.”