Dean Smith says that his Brentford side can take heart from an impressive performance at Stoke as they preserved their unbeaten start to the new season with a 1-1 draw.

Benik Afobe pounced on a defensive mix-up between Daniel Bentley and Chris Mepham to open the scoring for the home side before a well-worked Bees move ended with Ollie Watkins equalising with a crisp strike from outside the box in the second period.

The point leaves Brentford sixth after their opening day 5-1 thrashing of Rotherham last weekend whilst newly-relegated Stoke sit in the bottom three, without a win in their two Championship fixtures so far.

And despite the error that led to Afobe’s goal, Smith was encouraged by the fact that it came against the run of play.

“Stoke have a talented squad so for us to come here and dominate is very pleasing for me. The players can take a lot of belief from this result,” said the Brentford head coach.

"[The goal] was a mistake and it can happen. I thought we were then the better team in the second half.

"The character and spirit from the players was there in the second half and we eventually put that right with a great goal."

Neal Maupay had the chance to grab his third of the season when he pounced on a loose pass from Ryan Shawcross to go clean through early on but a last-ditch tackle by Bruno Martins-Indi averted the danger.

Instead it was Afobe, scoring in his second consecutive match since signing from Wolves this summer, who put the home side ahead when he reacted first to Mepham’s mistimed header back to Bentley and tapped into an empty net 29 minutes in.

But Brentford battled back and got their reward in the 66th minute when a tidy one-two between Watkins and Maupay set up theformer, with the 22-year-old’s clean hit into the bottom corner beat Jack Butland.

And it was the away side who came closest to nabbing a winner as Butland saved well from Watkins and substitute Said Benrahma saw an effort skim wide.