Bees midfielder Marcus Bean says Brentford’s league plight means a cup date with Birmingham City has become an after thought.

The 25-year-old notched his first league striker of the season in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Tranmere Rovers to lift the mood at Griffin Park and his side off the foot of the League One table.

Boss Andy Scott’s men have reserved their best form for the Carling Cup and Johnstone’s Paint Trophy so far this term as they have swapped ambitions of a top six finish with survival.

And Bean, who hit Brentford’s third goal at the weekend, reckons he hasn’t given next week’s fourth round trip to St Andrews a second thought with the Bees struggling to find their feet in the league this term.

“To be honest, I’ve forgotten the Birmingham game was even there I’ve been concentrating on the league that much,” he said.

“As it gets closer the boys might talk about it a bit more, but it hasn’t been mentioned once at the training ground so far.

“When you are down at the bottom the first priority is to get out of the rut and take on the rest of the season from there.

“You can’t look any further than that.”

Thirteen summer signings had raised expectations the Bees would be ready for an assault on the play-offs this season, having finished ninth last time around.

The recent departure of Nicky Adams as been tempered by the arrival of Lewis Grabban - on-loan from Millwall - as Scott has sought to stabilise his side’s stop-start campaign.

And Bean insists it is not too late for promotion to still be a realistic target, providing Brentford find their consistency sooner rather than later.

“I think if you look at last season there were a few teams that sneaked into the play-offs having had bad starts,” he added.

“It is still possible for us. It is a big ask, but it is possible.

“We are ambitious and we are not going to give up on it until it is mathematically impossible to make the play-offs.”