Brentford boss Mark Warburton is confident his squad will be hungry to challenge for Championship promotion next term despite not being at the helm.

The Bees saw their play-off hopes evaporate in the north east on Friday as they crashed 3-0 at Middlesbrough to miss out on a Wembley final and a shot at landing a place in the Premier League.

Goals from Lee Tomlin, Kike and Albert Adomah meant Boro, who finished eight points above Brentford in the table, scored 10 goals against the Bees in four matches this season.

It was a disappointing end to Warburton's spell in charge at Griffin Park, but the 52-year-old is confident the team will bounce back to launch another challenge next term - even though he will not be in charge.

"I look at the players and of course they can challenge," he said.

"They will lose one or two loanees, like Pritchard, Jon Toral and Chris Long - I cannot speak highly enough of them - but there are other players in the loan market. They will sign one or two more.

"They are a young squad that got promotion last year. They are hungry and they are fearless."

He added: "It is frustrating I will not continue to work with this squad of players and the staff who I think are outstanding.

"I've worked with many of the staff for six, seven or eight years and brought many of them here. They are Premier League in terms of quality of staff."

Brentford were never really at the races once Tomlin fired them ahead mid-way through the first half.

They had to score first in the second half if they were going to make it a memorable night for more than 2,000 treavelling supporters.

But it was Kike who extended Boro's advantage before Adomah wrapped things up with Brentford going all out attack.

"The players are very disappointed, but all credit to them. Over 46 games they deserve to be there," added Warburton.

"We were second best. Middlesbrough were the better team on the night and they deserve to go through.

"They are a very strong squad, with talented players. They are well organised unit wise and team wise.

"You look around the stadium and there are 33,000 or 34,000 people here. They are a big club. The better team deserved to go through.

"There is no criticism of the players, but they will be the first to say we were not good enough in the first half. They imposed their game on us more than we imposed ours on theirs."