Brentford boss Dean Smith is targeting the Championship play-offs as he looks to celebrate his first year in charge against Norwich City this weekend.

Smith's squad have lost their last three but the Bees' boss is raising his sights as Brentford aim to inflict a sixth straight league defeat on the Canaries.

'Why not? I know with the recent results it's not looking like it. You need to put a run of results together,' he said. 'I don't think anybody thought we'd finish ninth (last season). It's not difficult to do. It's just you've got to get a consistent base. We've got a consistent base and we need consistent performances to get results. There's a chance – while we're not in a good run of form – we have to make sure we start doing that with a number of games.

'My job is to keep us going as a club, getting a better squad of players, and making them better as footballers and as people to start climbing the league.'

Smith insists the Bees are better than their lowly 16th place in the table would suggest.

'I think the league is up and down. We should have beaten Birmingham and if we had we'd have been three points behind the team in fifth,' he told the Get West London site. 'You don't win and you end up five points above the drop zone. It's why we talk about consistency. We've lost two games from two set pieces, two penalties and an own goal. It's something that at the start of the season wasn't happening to us. Things have gone against us.

'We know there are things we can turn around quickly. I think there has been progress at the club. The feel around the place is better than when I arrived. I'm not the best judge of that. There are people around who are better judges of whether the place has improved. I believe it has. We've got a better squad of players.'