Ollie Watkins praises Brentford character after Bees bounce back to seal Championship play-off final berth

Brentford striker Ollie Watkins hailed his side’s character after they bounced back from automatic promotion disappointment and overturned a first-leg deficit to reach next week’s Championship play-off final at Wembley.

The Bees lost their final two games of the Championship season, blowing a golden opportunity to achieve a top-two finish, and were then beaten 1-0 by Swansea City on Sunday in the away leg of their play-off semi-final tie.

But they responded by beating Steve Cooper's side 3-1 at Griffin Park on Wednesday night to seal a 3-2 aggregate triumph and keep their Premier League dream alive.

“I’m over the moon,” Watkins, who opened the scoring with his 26th goal of the season, told Sky Sports. “We’ve had a tough few games and it hurt us a bit but we’ve bounced back tonight.

"We win and lose together. I felt like it was important to get the boys together after the Barnsley game to regroup and take a step back. We came out of lockdown unbelievable, the best team [in the league], but we lost the last two games.

“It was very hard. We worked so hard physically and emotionally and it’s draining losing when we’d been on such a good run. We got ourselves together tonight, focused on the job at hand.

"Going into a game 1-0 down, it shows big desire to come back and win against a good side. We came off the pitch angry [after the first-leg defeat] and ready to go again. I don’t think it was red card for Rico [Henry] and we started the game well tonight.

"We deserved it, we could’ve punished them more, we could have been three or four up at half-time.”

Wednesday night’s game was the last ever at Griffin Park, and Brentford will now face either Fulham or Cardiff City at Wembley next Tuesday night as they look to crown a fairytale farewell season.

“What a game it would’ve been for [the fans] to watch, but I’m sure it’s not bad watching on the TV at home with a beer,” Watkins added. “It’s going to be sad not playing at this place but we went to the new stadium the other day and it looks unbelievable.

“We can’t get all this way and then fall at the last hurdle, so we’ve got to concentrate on the job at hand.”

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