Pinnock feels Brentford have turned ground into fortress

Ethan Pinnock believes Brentford have turned their ‘bus stop in Hounslow’ into a fortress.

The Bees have lost just once at home this season in the Premier League, to leaders Arsenal in September, and picked up another three points with a 2-0 win over Bournemouth on Saturday.

Ivan Toney’s penalty and Mathias Jensen’s cool finish made it three wins in a row and seven games unbeaten for Brentford, who climbed to eighth.

The club, in only their second season in the Premier League, now revel in their ‘bus stop’ tag, having originally been mocked with it by QPR fans during one particularly galling defeat in the dim and distant past.

“The boys are confident,” said defender Pinnock. “We weren’t playing one of the top, top teams, and sometimes your standards can drop a bit.

“It was important to keep our standards and we did that. We go into every game thinking we can get three points.

“We want to keep the momentum going, we’re on a great run of results.

“Our big aim was to make our home ground a fortress, to keep the intensity, and we’ve done that.”

Bournemouth, by contrast, are in freefall and only defeats for West Ham and Everton kept them out of the relegation zone.

Injuries are not helping their situation. They were without striker Dominic Solanke and lost midfielder Lewis Cook to a knee problem in the first half.

“Not sure how bad it will be,” boss Gary O’Neil said about Cook. “He said he felt some pain in his knee but wanted to give it a go, so he went back on to see if it was OK. But he obviously struggled so we had to take him off.”

On Solanke, O’Neil added: “We don’t know exactly what it is, but we’re hopeful it’s not going to be too long.

“We’ve suffered some bad fortune injury-wise, but the lads are still together and still pushing.”