Smith ‘hurt’ by Bees defeat

Brentford boss Dean Smith felt the switch to three at the back worked despite the home defeat to Birmingham on Saturday.

An early penalty from ex-Bees striker Clayton Donaldson and a Ryan Shotton goal against the run of play midway through the second half put Blues 2-0 up.

Brentford dominated large parts of the match but went unrewarded despite a late Scott Hogan goal.

Smith, who admitted he felt ‘hurt’ at losing the game, explained why he changed formation and said on another day it could have yielded all three points.

He said: “With Birmingham playing two up front, and having scored the most headed goals this season in the Championship, we knew it’d be a physical affair.

“But we’ve got three centre-halves who are all good footballers and when we got on the ball, we passed it with a purpose.

“I thought it worked really well. I can understand people’s frustrations at half-time because you’re losing the game, but we’ve dominated, created opportunities and they had to change their shape because we were getting so much joy.

“We didn’t start as quickly as I’d have liked but when we got going we got in between their lines really well and created a number of chances, we just didn’t take them.”

Smith agreed with his opposite number, Birmingham boss Gary Rowett, who conceded that Brentford should have got something out of the game.

He added: “We’re a young team and it hurts sitting here losing a game that we should have won.

“We’ve absolutely dominated the game. If it was a boxing match it would’ve been stopped but football matches, especially in the Championship, change on small moments.”