KEITH ANDREWS HAILED his Brentford players for the manner in which they turned the screw after taking the lead against Everton on Sunday.

A Nathan Collins header and an Igor Thiago hat-trick gave the Bees a 4-2 win at Hill Dickinson Stadium, a result which sees Andrews’ side climb to seventh in the Premier League table.

Brentford led 1-0 at the break thanks to Thiago’s 11th-minute opener, and then hit Everton with a quickfire double shortly after the restart, Collins and Thiago scoring twice in as many minutes to make it 3-0.

Beto pulled one back for Everton on 66 minutes before Thiago made the points safe and wrapped up his hat-trick two minutes from time, leaving Thierno Barry’s late goal as little more than a consolation for the Toffees.

With seven defeats and just two wins from their nine away games prior to today, Andrews was quick to praise his players’ courage.

“It’s probably been a lot made of that away record. I feel like performances have been better than the results that we’ve got, and I also feel like the group as a whole has grown in confidence and maturity.

We’re evolving as a team and as a club. I think off the back of that, you can come to a place like this and play with courage, and you have to play with courage.

“It’s my first time to the new stadium, but been to Goodison enough times and I know what makes this football club tick. It’s a tricky place to come. The decibel levels can go through the roof, the crowd can really get on board and dictate the flow and momentum of a game.

“I felt we would have to play with real courage today, and I thought we did that in the main.”

Andrews added: “I still think it was hard-earned.

“It’s nice when you set a gameplan out and it’s what you do with the ball. It’s all the bits in between that really make it for me: the second balls, the duals, the fighting, the scrapping, the running, all the real basics that I hold in a really high place in terms of priorities when we go into each game.

“From that base, I think you can play with a structure, with and without the ball.

“I was impressed with how we started the game overall, and I was really impressed with how we started the second half, because I don’t want us to be a team that just takes a step backwards when we’re winning or we’re in the ascendancy. That’s a really important message to send out to the players, and what we do and how we do it.

“We knew there would be a reaction in the second half, and there was from them clearly, and we would have to manage that, and I felt in the main we did it pretty well.”