Brentford manager Dean Smith was delighted at the way his side played at the Emirates Stadium against Arsenal on Wednesday.

While they were unable to get a positive result from the game, Brentford did run the Gunners close in an eventual 3-1 defeat.

Alan Judge scored a great free kick to give the team hope of mounting a comeback.

He said to the Evening Standard: "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."