Smith admits Brentford might need favours to make Championship play-offs

Dean Smith admitted his Brentford side might need “a few favours” in their bid to sneak into the Championship play-offs.

But he insisted the Bees would continue to focus on performances in the final five games following the 1-0 home win over Ipswich.

“That’s all we talk about because if we do that we’ll get results and we don’t have any expectation on us apart from the expectation we put on ourselves,” said Smith.

“All we can do is concentrate on our own game and see where it takes us. We certainly won’t be throwing the towel in, but we might need a few favours.”

Smith said Ipswich made it difficult for his side to score more than the single Neal Maupay penalty after Jonas Knudsen’s shove on Sergi Canos in the box.

“That was as difficult a game as we have had this season. They made it very tough for us by going man for man which made it hard to get our passing game going, but you always expect that from a Mick McCarthy side,” said Smith.

“There were only two chances of note in the first half and it was always going to be something like a penalty that settled it. I saw the hand on Sergi’s back and he went down, but we’ve had enough of them that haven’t been given this season.”

Smith hailed the resilience of his side in a niggly stop-start game.

He said: “We had to work extremely hard to get time and space on the ball and when we did get it down we were loose and didn’t use it well.

“But this is possibly a game we wouldn’t have won earlier in the season. We had to dog it out and I thought we did that.”

Ipswich boss Mick McCarthy bemoaned the 72nd minute penalty that consigned his mid-table battlers to defeat.

“Dean Smith has said they have deserved a pretty soft penalty and when managers say that it usually means they don’t think it was one,” claimed McCarthy.

“I can’t do anything about it. I was happy with the performance and we played well today but again it’s all down to fine margins.”

McCarthy, who leaves the Portman Road club at the end of the season, admitted the situation was far from helpful.

“I can’t image me going at end of season has helped, but you saw the way the players have played for me.

“They were terrific today and in the last three games but the atmosphere it has created is not good for anybody.”

McCarthy added: “They were getting frustrated and the only down side is that we weren’t good with the ball, but we didn’t make the most of our opportunities to hurt them and the game has changed on a poor decision.

“When we did get a chance, their keeper has made a good save but we kept trying to do right thing.”

Ipswich look set to be without centre back Luke Chambers after he was forced off with a cracked rib early on, but McCarthy joked: “He’ll probably be in my office tomorrow asking to play.”

McCarthy also had some words of praise for midfielder Luke Hyam, who endured 90 minutes of booing from the Griffin Park crowd in the wake of a horror tackle on Bees midfielder Alan Judge, who faced up against him for the first time since.

He said: “It was a very mature performance, an excellent emotionally good performance from someone who has had to endure constant abuse throughout the game. I told him ‘welcome to my world’.”