Preston North End boss Alex Neil was left perplexed by his team’s performance as they were humbled by Brentford in their final game of the Championship season.

After Julian Jeanvier and a fan in the stands were both taken off on stretchers during two stoppages of play, Ezri Konsa opened the scoring shortly before half time.

Then came Neal Maupay to grab his 25th goal in the league, and 28th overall, to double the Bees’ lead not long after the restart.

And following a relentless Brentford onslaught, substitute Marcus Forss made sure of the points with an 83rd minute goal to round off the Bees’ season.

But Neil was left disappointed with how poor his Preston team was going forward, struggling to test home goalkeeper Luke Daniels enough on the afternoon.

“I'm naturally disappointed,” he said. “I didn't think that we really threatened Brentford that much, I don't think we had that many opportunities in the game.

“We found it really difficult to get in behind them when did concede possession, because I thought we had comfortable possession for large parts of the game, as did they, but they certainly looked more threatening than we did.

“When you combine the two it doesn't make good reading for us in the game because, when we're going forward it amounts to nothing really, and then when they're going forward they're getting shots on target and they're getting corners and they're applying pressure.”

Asked what he put the sobering defeat down to he said it was “difficult to say”, before adding: “I actually thought we started the game reasonably well, but we didn't do basics in the game well enough.

“Our use of the ball was quite safe and pedestrian and didn't move it quick enough. We didn't damage them in any good areas, I thought our decision-making at times was poor and, if you don't do the basics well you give yourself a real mountain to climb.

“I thought Brentford moved the ball relatively well but I've certainly seen them play better as well.”

The Brentford defeat for Preston rounds off a disappointing finish to their season, with just one win in eight league matches.

Heading into the 46th, and final, Championship fixture of their campaign, they had draw once and lost twice since running riot against already-relegated Ipswich Town.

Neil thinks defeats such as this makes both him and his staff look at everything, but didn’t put it down to tactics.

“I think if your players are playing well, and the tactical approach is causing you a problem, then you can adapt it,” he said.

“But in the second half we changed to a 4-4-2 and not much changed, so I'm not sure the tactics were the issue.

“[When] you come to any difficult away venue, because Brentford are really strong at home, you need to play well and if you don't play well - individually and collectively - then that's an issue.

“Today I don't think we did either.”