Dean Smith hailed his Brentford side for a much-improved second half after they ran Arsenal close in the EFL Cup third round.
Though the Gunners emerged 3-1 victors on the night Unai Emery’s side had to ride a wave of pressure in the second half, when Alan Judge’s brilliant free-kick halved the deficit to two Danny Welbeck goals.
It was only when Alexandre Lacazette struck low past Luke Daniels in stoppage time that Arsenal’s progress to the fourth round was secure after a nervy period in which Sergi Canos had twice gone close to hitting an equaliser. Smith credited his side’s improved display to “a few words at half-time” and said: “The first goal knocked a little bit of the stuffing out of us.
“We had to go and press them as high as we could, they’ve got an awful lot of quality and they broke the press a couple of times and had chances. We restricted them to few chances but never really played at the intensity I wanted in the first half.
“I said to the players at half-time they could either sit behind the ball and let Arsenal take 2-0 or go and ask a question. They players went and asked a question in the second half. Our intensity was better.
“I thought there was a lot more belief in what we did. We forced a very good team into mistakes and almost took them to penalties in the end.
“I can take a lot of pride from that second half performance, we scored a great goal, asked many questions of them and were on the front foot for the majority of the second half.”
In Pictures | EFL Cup third round
Brentford were denied a late penalty when Yoann Barbet was felled by Stephan Lichtsteiner and Lucas Torreira in the Arsenal box.
Smith told Standard Sport: “I’ve since been told there was a clip but I’m miles away from it so I can’t see. You’d hope VAR makes the right decision.”
