Hughton Reflects On Hard Result To Take

Brighton & Hove Albion manager Chris Hughton believes his players undoubtably deserved more from this afternoon’s 2-0 defeat to Leicester City, and felt Kasper Schmeichel’s penalty save gave the visitors a game-changing boost for the closing stages.

Goals from Vicente Iborra and Jamie Vardy sealed all three points for the Foxes, and inflicted a fourth home defeat of the season on the Seagulls - and Hughton expressed his disappointment after a promising performance at the Amex Stadium.

He said, “It’s frustrating and hard to take. It was certainly not a game that we deserved to lose. The things that we needed to do, to nullify the strengths they had, I think we did very well.

“We dealt with the pace of [Jamie] Vardy and the quality of [Riyad] Mahrez, and we did that very well for the entire game.

“The next bit is that we’ve got to score goals ourselves. We created good opportunities and had decent chances to score.

“They got a lift in the last period of the game, following the penalty miss, and that got them the goal.

“The second goal was immaterial, because at that stage we had Shane Duffy playing up front and we had to go for it.

“They’re a side that are good in possession, so you know they’re going to have more of the play - but as regards to the work in the final third, I thought we were the better side."

Glenn Murray’s 76th-minute spot-kick was brilliantly saved by Schmeichel, and although Hughton was frustrated to see a golden chance go to waste, he praised the striker for his contribution this season.

“Glenn has scored penalties for us this season and scored vital goals. That’s what strikers do and what penalty takers do.

“Leicester will be grateful for a good save from their goalkeeper, and we’re just disappointed that we never scored it. But Glenn has been very good for us this season.”

The Seagulls slipped to 13th in the Premier League but remain six points clear of the relegation zone after today’s results, and Hughton looked ahead to Albion’s final seven games of the campaign.

“Every game feels like the last push. We’ve got some very difficult games coming up - our next game is at home to Huddersfield.

“There are a lot of aspects from today that we’ll settle for going into next week’s game, but we need that little bit at the end that’s going to get us goals.

“Nerves come with where we are in the league. It comes with games against very good sides in the Premier League.

“But we’ve got a resilient group of players and they’ve good for us for the large majority of the season, and we’ll need to be good again next week.”