Brentford head coach Dean Smith kept his cool after West Ham chairman David Gold continued his public pursuit of Scott Hogan.

Hammers fan Stephen Field asked the chairman on Twitter: "how can you sign a defender and a midfielder albeit brilliant and not sign Scott Hogan absolutely mad"

In response, Gold replied: "You can't always get what you want but then again it's not over until the fat lady sings. dg”

Smith was made aware of this at Thursday's press conference ahead of the trip to Chelsea but maintained the club's stance of remaining private about these issues.

Scott Hogan at Brentford FC v Birmingham FC, Brentford Football Club, Griffin park, Brentford on 26-11-2016. CREDIT - LEWIS DARLING

“It's a good job I keep off social media. I don't know what the message is. Donald Trump sends a lot of tweets and I'm not sure I understand all of them,” Smith said.

“I told Scott that I was going to do a press conference about Chelsea on Saturday and I'll be talking about him and he was laughing about it.

“We want to talk about the Chelsea game and we want to test ourselves against the top team in the land but people have tweeted. We do our business privately and what other teams do is up to them.”

Hogan has trained all week but it remains a question as to whether he will be in Smith's starting XI to face the league leaders.

Hands up: Dean Smith

The head coach explained: “I'd like to think Scott would be motivated to play against any team. He wants to play football but he's getting phone calls telling him bids are imminent when they haven't been.

“He doesn't want to get injured and harm his chances. When you get the chance to play in the Premier League, it can change your life.”

He added: “It's a challenge that's thrown at you. You speak to them as a human being. I've got empathy for him but I've got a job as head coach at Brentford.

“Scott didn't need reminding of that. We want to play our best team and not have it influenced by other people.”

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