Brentford boss Dean Smith admitted his side deserved to lose to Derby County after conceding three goals in 14 first-half minutes.

The Championship high flyers fell to only their second loss of the season at the hands of Frank Lampard’s men despite Henrik Dalsgaard’s header gifting the Bees a dream start after just 44 seconds.

But the Brentford manager was left ruing a disappointing first-half performance that saw Derby's Harry Wilson draw level following a swift counter attack from a poorly taken Bees corner.

“Hindsight is always a wonderful thing, but today we got beaten by the better team in the first-half.

“In the second-half we controlled possession, but they were two goals ahead so it was always going to be very difficult for us to break them.

“I am disappointed more in their goals and the way we conceded them.

“We never passed the ball in the first-half with enough purpose to break their press. The goals that we gave away were disappointing.

“The first one [was avoidable], they break from our corner and within five seconds of our corner they had scored.

“It was a great break from them, but there’s certainly things we could have done to stop it, and there’s things we will look back on with disappointment.”

Despite the loss, Smith said he couldn’t fault his players effort levels as they went in search of a second-half fightback ahead of Wednesday’s League Cup clash with Arsenal.

“I felt that if we could have got the next goal it would have put them under some serious pressure, but it never came.

“Second-half we never worked their keeper enough.

“I certainly can’t say that the players didn’t try, they worked very hard against a good team that had already got a two goal lead.

“I am not going to use tiredness as an excuse because we are in September. If it comes to April and we are playing seven games, then I will start thinking about tiredness.

“The lads who were out there, Derby took them by surprise by the pace and intensity that they played at.”