Brentford manager Thomas Frank hailed his players for “defending with their lives” after keeping a clean sheet in their 5-0 thrashing of Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship.

Goals from Josh Dasilva, Emiliano Marcondes and Bryan Mbeumo saw the Bees race into a 3-0 lead at the half-time interval as the hosts dominated possession at Griffin Park.

A second for Dasilva and another for replacement Tariqe Fosu completed the rout as the hosts sealed a first league win since beating Middlesbrough at the beginning of February.

But while Brentford were ruthless in attack, it was the way they defended that pleased Frank most after his side climbed up to fourth in the table – four points behind Fulham in third.

"We know when we are bang on it, that we are a really, really big threat. What we've got right this season is that our defending's even better,” said Frank.

"The big headline was the desire to defend. I know that sounds crazy when we won 5-0, but we know that we try to play attractive, offensive football and we try to dominate the matches.

"When we got on top of the game and created chances we were scary. But, we conceded too many goals in February, so today was a big, big thing. [The players] defended with their lives."

Fosu’s goal was his first for the club since arriving for an undisclosed fee from Oxford United in January and the left-sided attacker was delighted to contribute from off the bench.

“It was amazing,” he said. “I was watching from the bench but the boys played some good football and it’s definitely the reaction we wanted after last week to come win against a good side.

“The message when I came on was just to work hard defensively first because we were winning and we wanted the clean sheet then it was about going forward and expressing yourself.

“It felt great to score my first goal in front of the fans and the atmosphere was buzzing and rocking to be fair the whole game. To get that first goal, I’m delighted.”