Sunderland set up a Carabao Cup quarter final tie at Crystal Palace by beating Brentford

Keith Andrews bemoaned 'twelve minutes of madness' as his Brentford side fell to a 3-2 defeat against Sunderland on Wednesday night.

Brentford made eight changes to their side for the Carabao Cup fourth round tie, but still fielded a side that boasted extensive Premier League experience. They were playing well when Sunderland produced an excellent spell of counterattacking football in the first half, scoring three goals to take a lead that they would ultimately hold onto to book their place in the quarter final.

Andrews said his side should have scored more with the opportunities they created but said it was a failure to get the defensive basics right that ultimately had cost them.

"We were very ambitious in this competition to try and go as far as we could," he said.

"We approached it in a very diligent way. We played Sunderland quite recently and know what they're all about. We've had some good games against them.

"We can't concede goals like that in such a short period of time and defend like that and expect to get a good outcome out of the game. I think the game is about both boxes really. What happens in between sometimes can be a little bit of fluff really.

"I think the way we defend those particular instances, we need to do the basics better. We need to not take chances. We need to manage the key moments within the game.

"Granted, there are some players coming into the team that haven't played it in a while, but we pride ourselves on those basics and what we do and how we defend as a team, not as individuals. Either side of that, we were pretty good. We've obviously scored two and feel like we could have and should have scored more. It's a crazy game but we obviously look at ourselves and how we conceded those goals and clearly aren't too happy about it."

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Andrews said he fully believed the team he selected had enough quality to go and win the tie and though he felt elements of their performance was strong, he said that first-half spell had been the difference.

"I think there are two ways of looking at it," he said.

"You can't discard those errors, those twelve minutes of madness, come under the umbrella of the performance obviously. When you concede three goals in twelve minutes, you obviously have to critically analyse that as to why. I had full faith in the team that we selected. We speak about the squad that we have, the depth. We see it every day in training, the competitiveness, the edge that we train with. I trust the players but unfortunately that twelve minutes has cost us tonight."

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