Smith hails Bees skipper after derby draw

Brentford head coach Dean Smith praised his captain Jake Bidwell after Bees drew at Fulham – and he insisted Bidwell is his type of skipper.

The left-back was excellent and provided the delivery for his side’s second-half equaliser in a 2-2 draw at Craven Cottage.

Smith said: “He leads by example; how he is when he goes out on the pitch, and when he’s on the training ground and around the football club.

“People follow him. What I like about Jake is that he doesn’t want to create followers, but create more leaders around the group. But for a young lad to have that responsibility shows his maturity. He deserves the armband.

“His performance was very good. It was a great delivery for the goal. But there were a lot of good performances. Our two centre halves had a good game up against Moussa Dembele and Ross McCormack.

“A draw was probably a fair result in the end. It was pretty even in the first half, we started the second half really well and were causing them problems, but they scored against the run of play. We showed great character to get back in the game.”