Dean Smith has hit back at Brentford's punishment for their part in the tussle against Nottingham Forest and said he was 'dumbfounded' that the club were charged.

Both the Bees and Midlands side admitted an FA charge of "failing to ensure their players conducted themselves in an orderly fashion" in the Brentford's 2-1 win and the two sides have been handed a £5,000 fine.

A collision between Romaine Sawyers and Forest defender Jack Robinson sparked a 15-man melee after the latter had fouled Alan Judge. In the aftermath, as well as Sawyers and Robinson, Lewis Grabban and Said Benrahma were also booked.

That meant Brentford had five players booked during the game, while Forest had seven cautioned, though the visitors at Griffin Park looked to have set out to disrupt the game.

While Smith believes his players didn't do too much wrong, he admitted it was difficult to appeal against the charge.

He said: "The wording of the charge meant it was nigh on impossible to go and appeal that. I don't believe we should have been fined.

"I think it was much ado about nothing if I'm honest, most of our players were breaking things up and pulling people away than anything else but if you're deemed to adopt an aggressive attitude and there's three or four involved, it's deemed as mass confrontation so you get charged for it.

"Next time we'll have to hire a very expensive lawyer to get out of that.

"It's very difficult and I've looked back at that incident time and time again. How we came out of it with two yellow cards was beyond me. Furthermore we've got a fine as well from the FA, I was certainly a little frustrated and dumbfound that we got charged."

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