Brentford vs Preston North End. Sky Bet Championship.
Griffin ParkAttendance11,289.
Brentford finish 11th after their 3-0 win over Preston
Sunday 5 May 2019 17:26, UK
Goals from Ezri Konsa, Neal Maupay and Marcus Forss saw Brentford end the Sky Bet Championship campaign with a 3-0 win against Preston at Griffin Park.
After separate stoppages in the first half to treat Bees defender Julian Jeanvier and a home fan who had collapsed, 13 minutes of stoppage time were awarded.
And Konsa took advantage by scoring the first goal of his club career, before Maupay netted his 25th Championship goal of the season nine minutes after the interval and Forss made the points safe late on.
Callum Robinson had the visitors' opening chance after around 25 minutes when his shot was palmed by Luke Daniels, but the game only really sparked into life just before the break.
Danish midfielder Emiliano Marcondes brought the ball down well on the edge of the Preston box and turned it neatly inside for Sergi Canos, whose square pass found Konsa with the aid of a deflection for the 21-year-old to sweep home.
The second period saw Thomas Frank's side pick up where they left off.
Josh Da Silva's incisive through-ball found Canos in the box and the tricky Spaniard danced away from a challenge before squaring to Maupay, who planted his close-range effort into the roof of the net.
Da Silva has really come into his own this term and the 20-year-old was shining in central midfield, threading another neat pass through to Maupay who curled over.
Brentford introduced two young players late on, Forss and Jaakko Oksanen, and the former rounded off the scoring in the 84th minute with an impressive finish.
The 19-year-old shifted the ball on to his right foot and arrowed a shot into the corner from 25 yards for his first goal in league football.
Thomas Frank: "This year the fans have been amazing and behind us especially in the tough times. It was important to finish well.
"I think we've scored some really fantastic goals this season.
"Our higher performances have been top three level, but our lower performances have not been good enough. In that consistency we must do better, and have a minimum level that we can put out there every week.
"That's the thing we need to improve."
Alex Neil: "Unfortunately for everybody, that's the last thing we leave with a memory of this season, which is a disappointment, but we need to regroup and make sure that in the summer we do all the necessary work that we need to do to make sure that we are in as strong a position as we can be to go into next season."
"When they looked more threatening than we did, it didn't make a good balance in the match, because I felt we didn't really move the ball quick enough to get into threatening areas and when they moved the ball quick enough, it caused us issues.
"We didn't deserve anything from that game.
