Brentford manager Dean Smith believes his side could be topping the Championship table with a 100 per cent record, instead of being in the relegation zone with just a point to show for their efforts so far.

The Bees head to Ipswich Town this afternoon, having lost 1-0 at Sheffield United on the opening day, 4-3 at home to Nottingham Forest and then drawing 2-2 with Bristol City, at Griffin Park, in midweek.

“It could so easily be nine points out of three games,” said Smith, “so I’m not too despondent.

“Obviously, I would like a lot more points but I’ve always said that it’s about performances and usually the performances will bring you results.

“It was very disappointing that we conceded in the 98th minute (on Tuesday). I was very calm after the game as I went into the dressing room and I enjoyed watching us play on Tuesday night. I thought we played some terrific stuff, they had to defend tremendously well because on another day we could have scored five or six.”

In contrast to Brentford, Town do have a perfect league record, their third successive win coming in the 4-3 victory at Millwall on Tuesday.

“It’s always a tough test against one of Mick’s team’s anyway, you know, they’ve started the season really well. They’ve won all four games, played well and it’s going to be a test for us,” Smith added.

“They’ve got good players there, they have a management team that has been there and done it, and got teams out of this league. We have to concentrate on ourselves, we’ll pay them the full respect they deserve but the important thing is how we approach the game.

“One of my big things this week is to make sure the lads still believe in what they are doing because it can be easy when you’re not picking up points to lose focus and not believe in what’s happening. The performances have inspired me to believe we are on the right track to where we want to get to.”