Bees boss Andy Scott has not given up hope of landing former West Ham United defender Ian Pearce but is confident he will land a new centre-half - come what may.

Brentford eased past Hampton & Richmond Borough 2-0 at the Beveree on Tuesday night after Saturday’s creditable 1-1 draw with Championship side Watford in front of the Griffin Park faithful.

Pearce was absent from both clashes as Scott once again ran the rule over trialists Mark Phillips and Brett Johnson in the back four alongside Karleigh Osborne.

The manager is still hunting more options beyond the 20-year-old centre-back and Tottenham Hotspurs loanee Leigh Mills.

But he is confident he will have a third central defender on his books by the start of the campaign and hasn’t ruled out Pearce being his man.

“Ian is weighing his options up at the moment. He has a couple of things he is looking at. We are carrying on as we were. A deal is not dead,” he said.

“The trialists are still with us for the next couple of days and will get a chance against Woking. A decision will be made from there.

“We are still after a centre-half. That situation hasn’t changed, but we are closer now than we have ever been. As far as everything else is concerned I’m pleased with where we are.”

American trialist Justin Abel made his final appearance in a Bees shirt on Tuesday night before returning to the States 24 hours later.

Scott is still looking at Michael Antonio, Miles Mitchell-Coop and Andre Boucard as options for the coming season, but revealed Abel would have been too expensive to bring on board as a squad member.

“Justin did very well, but there were always going to be passport issues and we don’t have the funds to cover re-location costs for someone who wasn’t an automatic starter,” he added.

“We really enjoyed having him around and I would be more than happy to give him a reference should he need one.”