SMITH: I HAVE NEVER SEEN MY BOYS SO CROSS
BRENTFORD head coach Dean Smith was delighted with the way his side “were on it from the start” against a footballing Wigan outfit, to move into the Championship’s top two.
But he insisted: “The hardest part is trying to stay there because you become a target, but we will do what we always do and just take each game as it comes.”
A Neal Maupay double, his sixth and seventh of the season, was enough to clinch the points against a Wigan side reduced to 10 men just before the hour mark when Sam Morsy saw red for an elbow on Yoann Barbet.
“I don’t think it was the header that got him sent off. It was the follow through with his forearm which was bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my players so angry,” he said.
“It was a very satisfying win because Wigan are a good footballing side and I knew they would be a test for us, but from the first few minutes we were very aggressive in the way we went about them and I knew we were on it from the start.”
Match-winner Maupay, who returned after a three-game ban for a stamp on Aston Villa’s John McGinn, gave the Londoners the lead in the 24th minute, firing home from close range at the end of a slick fiveman move that left the Wigan defence chasing shadows.
And he was in the right place at the right time in the 63rd minute when he smashed the loose ball into the roof of the net as it pinballed in the box.
Wigan had their moments in the first half, with Nick Powell’s flashing half volley from the edge of the box forcing a full-length fingertip save from Dan Bentley after 15 minutes.
The big striker almost made an impact a minute later, pulling the ball back from the byline only for James Vaughan to fire just over the angle from 12 yards.
After the break it was all Brentford, and Maupay should have extended the lead in a one-on-one with Walton, who deflected his low drive wide with his legs as he dived the wrong way.
Brentford’s second ended Wigan’s resistance and Lewis Macleod almost made it three a minute later but his 30-yard piledriver destined for the top corner was brilliantly tipped wide by Walton. Callum Connolly might have given the scoreline a more positive gloss for the Latics late on but glanced his header wide from a rare foray into the home box.
Wigan boss Paul Cook said the only positive he could take from his side’s defeat was that “we don’t have to come back to Griffin Park again this season”. The Latics were outplayed for long spells and Cook admitted: “I’ve got no complaints about the result at all. Brentford were excellent today, created chances and carved us open.”
Cook was unsure about the sending off of midfielder Morsy and will consider an appeal depending on the video evidence. “I felt he put his head in to head the ball and there was a clash of heads,” he said.