Swansea City 1-0 Brentford: Spectacular Ayew strike settles play-off first leg

Swansea, July 27: Andre Ayew brilliantly atoned for an earlier penalty miss to give Swansea City the advantage in their Championship play-off semi-final with a 1-0 first-leg win against 10-man Brentford.

Swansea scraped into the top six on the final day of the season as Brentford narrowly missed out on automatic promotion thanks to a second straight defeat.

The Welsh side subsequently had all the momentum coming into this home leg but struggled to capitalise on their dominance until late in a contentious clash.

Ayew headed against the post in the first half, with Rhian Brewster miscuing a simple rebound, although the Liverpool loanee made amends after the break to win a spot-kick as he was tripped by Pontus Jansson in the box.

David Raya then saved from Ayew, but Brentford's task became tougher still just a minute later as Rico Henry was controversially sent off for a lunge on Connor Roberts.

While Swansea had to wait for their breakthrough, with Brewster booked for diving in the area, Ayew thrashed in from 15 yards following a fine team move with nine minutes remaining to seize control ahead of the return fixture in London.