High praise: Phil Parkinson

Phil Parkinson has tipped Brentford to pull away from the zone – even if his own side appear doomed to stay rooted in it.

The Bolton boss joined the long list of Championship managers to have praised the Bees' style of play and expressed bewilderment as to why they were struggling down the bottom.

Oddly enough, Dean Smith's men didn't play as well yesterday as they have been in recent league games, but still conjured three magical goals to bag their first three-pointer of the campaign.

“Brentford are an intelligent side and they have brought in players who do well in that system – they can hurt you in possession of the ball, and they did that today,” said Parkinson.

“The quality of the goals they produced was excellent, and if they are going in like that every week you can’t see them being around the bottom end of the table for long.”

Bolton actually started the game the better of the two teams, and Brentford had to survive an early onslaught from the hosts, including hitting the post, before taking control of the game.

“We started great and had three or four good chances to get us that lift everyone seems to need at the moment – Gary (Madine) hit the post, forced a great save and Adam Armstrong was inches away from turning in a great cross,” Parkinson added.

“Then we concede a wonder strike and it knocked the stuffing out of us – it shouldn’t, but you could see it visibly knocked the energy out of us.

“Sometimes it can be perceived as the lads not trying or running around, but the manner of the three brilliant goals just knocked the wind right out of us.

“When you have lost 3-0 at home to a team who hasn’t won all season I can’t take any positive from the game. We kept changing it to try and find a way back in, but the more attacking players we put out on the pitch the more we lost the structure.”