I’M NO PUP, PEP’
BRENTFORD top scorer Neal Maupay says reaching the quarter-finals of the FA Cup would prove he made the right decision to stay at Griffin Park.
Frenchman Maupay, only 22, is hot property in the Championship after 20 goals already this season.
He was linked with £15million moves to Huddersfield, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough in the January transfer window.
Now the livewire striker, who cost just £1.6m from Nice, faces Swansea City dreaming of an FA Cup run that could take him all the way to Wembley.
Maupay (above) said: “I’m really pleased to still be here and very happy with my decision.
“I’m really blessed with the confidence Brentford gave me. So, for me it was an easy one.
“When I start something I want to finish it well, so it wasn’t difficult to stay.
“The truth is I feel good in this team. I feel good with my team-mates and with the fans because they showed me great support.
“I’m going to finish the season really well and see what happens next.”
Brentford know they could still lose Maupay in the summer if big clubs come knocking. But that’s the way the progressive Championship side works having already sold Andre Gray, Scott Hogan, Jota, Chris Mepham and James Tarkowski for big money.
Each of those has been successfully replaced – with Algerian winger Said Benrahma and striker Ollie Watkins the latest to impress.
So, Maupay has no doubts that Brentford, who haven’t reached the last eight since 1989, have the ability to win in Wales.
Tragic
The Bees lost 3-2 at home to the Swans in December when the team went through a difficult spell following the tragic death of technical director Robert Rowan at the age of just 28, and the departure of manager Dean Smith to Aston Villa.
But things have changed now under new boss Thomas Frank.
“We feel good and we are really looking forward to this game,” said Maupay.
“We are only two games from Wembley and it’s somewhere I have always dreamed of playing.
“It won’t be easy but I think we are ready and we are a different team to when we lost at home to Swansea.” BERSANT CELINA is on an FA Cup mission today to prove Pep Guardiola was wrong to offer him no role without even an audition.
Celina (right) will be Swansea City’s lead performer in midfield when they host Brentford for a place under the spotlight in the last eight of the FA Cup.
That is the kind of centre stage Celina, 22, craves after he was sold by Manchester City for £3million last summer without so much as a chance to prove he could stick to a script.
The silky-skilled Kosovan was given just four games to justify himself at City – all of them in the months prior to Guardiola’s arrival in 2016.
Spells on loan with FC Twente in Holland and then Ipswich followed but now he insists: “When I look back on my time at Man City I remind myself I was training with top players and I know what to do to get to that level again.
“I managed to get through at one point when I was much younger. I can do even better when I get more experience. That is the level I want to be at.
“It was incredible rubbing shoulders with players with that amount of talent. That gives me motivation.”