Brentford manager Dean Smith has spoken of his side’s bad luck in their 2-0 loss to Cardiff.

Neal Maupay missed an open goal with the scoreline at 1-0 in the first half, and the Bees had a host of chances but were not able to score past Neil Etheridge.

The loss ends Brentford’s nine match unbeaten run in the league, and they aimed to push closer to the play-off positions.

Bad luck

When asked if his side were unlucky, Smith said: “Yeah you could say that, I feel we was. We’ve obviously had enough chances to get something out of the game today. I think, I’ve just been told 25 attempts and 14 of them in the penalty box. So, in a normal game you would certainly score two or three.

“Some of our play was very good,” the manager said, “I was disappointed with the manner of the goals we conceded in all honesty. We spoke about part of their armoury is going to be a long throw from Morrison, and how we don’t want to get people sucked in to the first ball because the second ball is going to be important. We end up with four players going for the first ball and it drops to Ralls and he puts it in.”

A long throw from Sean Morrison rebounded to Joe Ralls outside the area, and Cardiff’s midfielder was able to hit the half-volley past Dan Bentley. 

Embed from Getty Images

That miss

After a defensive mixup, Ollie Watkins pushed the ball past goalkeeper Etheridge to Maupay, and the Frenchman took an eternity on the ball before sending it the wrong side of the post.

“I thought our reaction to that [Cardiff taking the lead] was okay,” the 46-year-old said, “obviously Neal’s had a glorious chance to level it up and then we give a poor second goal away but I thought our reaction at half time was very good, we could have scored four or five in the first five minutes of the second half. That’s when it felt like it wasn’t going to be one of them days for us."

Smith spoke to Maupay after the game, and said: “He knows he should have scored, and 99 times of 100 he does. He’s had one of them moments that you don’t want to see on a football pitch and it’s unfortunate."

At half-time, Smith “had a chat with him” and “thought he got into goalscoring positions really well, used his body really well and was unlucky with a few chances but I just felt it was one of those days for him.”

Maupay did generally play very well, and looked dangerous throughout the game. Brentford even missed him when he was subbed off for Lasse Vibe.

“It’s a bad miss, that’s what it is.” His manager said. “Centre-forwards live and die by goals and unfortunately we didn’t take our chances. We’ll all probably talk about the Maupay miss but we’ve had four free headers from set-pieces in the opposition box today.”

VAVEL Logo
About the author
Jack Mceachen
Sports Journalist in Staffordshire University.