Wycombe Wanderers manager Gareth Ainsworth believes his side should be ‘competitive’ ahead of their match with Brentford on Saturday.

The Chairboys were on their best form of the season prior to the international break, picking up seven points from a possible 15 and moving up to 22nd in the table.

Despite losing 2-0 to Nottingham Forest immediately before the break, Ainsworth believes his side can be competitive against last season’s Championship play-off finalists.

READ MORE: Wycombe forward donates shirts to Ugandan charity ahead of his international debut

Speaking ahead of the weekend’s game at Adams Park, the 47-year-old said: “We’ve got to make sure we’re super prepared.

“The boys need to be taking the last six or seven games into Brentford because from the first international break have all been great performances.

“We’ve been super competitive and there’s no reason why we can’t be competitive against Brentford.

“That’s what I want the boys to take into that on Saturday, they can compete at that level.

“It’s game on now and we want to make sure we finish higher than three teams at least and see what we can achieve.”

This will not be the first time the two teams have lined up against each other this season, with Wycombe travelling to Brentford’s new Community Stadium for the first round of the Carabao Cup.

The Bees won 4-2 on penalties after drawing 1-1 in the 90 minutes, with Republic of Ireland international Daryl Horgan scoring his first Wanderers goal in West London.

Wycombe also had Dominic Gape sent-off in the early stages of the second-half.

The midfielder has since not played for the side after picking up an injury.

However, despite the two sides having faced each other this season, Ainsworth is not expecting to be facing a similar line-up this weekend.

He added: “They were probably only at 60 per cent full strength in the cup game, they had a few out and changed the team a bit so we’re not going to take a great deal from that but what we can take is that they’re a good side.

“They played some good stuff that day and we’ve watched them in the league.

“Thomas Frank is a good manager, a good friend and he always has nice things to say about us.

“He plays some good football, they are able to spend a few million pounds on players but that doesn’t make it easy.

“It makes it a pressure job spending lots of money on players, and he seems to get it right when he does spend big money on players.”

READ MORE: Wycombe youngsters move out on loan - but will continue to train with the Chairboys

This game will be the first to see the new rule of five permitted substitutions in Championship matches, something which Wycombe had experience of during their play-off campaign last season.

Ainsworth believes it will be a positive for club managers, rewarding those with strong squads instead of just the 11.

“They are cramming the games in and I think the change of rules has been very welcomed because you don’t want legs to run out.

“It’ll be interesting to see how everyone does work those new rules, we’ve had a bit of experience with it after last season but it will be about the whole squad now and that’s really important.”

This will be the first league meeting between Wycombe and Brentford since the 2011/12 season, when the Bees smashed the Chairboys at Griffin Park - a game which Ainsworth played in.

Their last victory over the West London side was in the 2009/10 campaign - a 1-0 win at Adams Park on November 24, 2009 with Matt Harrold scoring a penalty.