Thomas Frank was delighted that Brentford fans got to experience the joy of winning a penalty shootout but admitted that they made life hard for themselves in a Carabao Cup win over Sheffield Wednesday.

The Bees booked their place in the quarter-finals of the competition after Mark Flekken saved Liam Palmer’s spot kick to give Brentford a 5-4 win in the shootout following a 1-1 draw.

Kevin Schade gave Brentford the lead in the first half against the Championship side, but the Owls levelled through Djeidi Gassama just before the hour mark.

Then after the first nine penalties were scored, Flekken provided the save that clinched progress, with Frank relieved to see his side go through.

He said: "I'm very, very happy that we are through, very happy. It's just a reminder that things are never easy! I hope the fans enjoyed the excitement - when you are on the right side of a penalty shootout, it's always a fantastic feeling.

"But I would have loved for us to kill the game off, 3-0, job done; I think we were on the trajectory to doing that in the first half. The first half was very good, but the only complaint was that we didn't score the 2-0 goal. We lacked five per cent urgency in the final moment.

"The second half, we started well again, we put them under pressure. And, then, out of nothing, boom, 1-1, momentum changed, Sheffield Wednesday worked very hard. Maybe we needed to reset, I never felt like we got on top of them.

"The good thing is, at the end of the game, we scored five top penalties, and it was a great save from Mark [Flekken]."

Brentford had started strongly when Schade scored after just 11 minutes, tapping into an empty net after his initial strike was saved by Pierce Charles and rebounded fortuitously off a defender into his path.

The home side should have built on that lead, with teenage keeper Charles making important interventions to deny Bryan Mbeumo and Keane Lewis-Potter.

And in the second half, Gassama got Wednesday back on terms with a fizzing strike from 25 yards before both teams had chances to win it.

Neither could find the crucial second goal, and instead it was Brentford who progressed thanks to Flekken’s heroics.