Roberto De Zerbi felt Lewis Dunk’s stoppage-time equaliser was the least Albion deserved against Everton at the Amex.
The skipper celebrated his 400th league appearance by heading home to make it 1-1 after Jarred Branthwaite had put the visitors ahead with 16 minutes to go.
“One point is better than zero, but if you analyse the game it is very tough to accept the result,” said De Zerbi. "I think we deserved to win. We created many chances to score. We suffered one chance when Tariq Lamptey saved a goal then we conceded from a set piece.
“Everton are a very good team with important players and we knew it could be a very tough game. Now it’s finished we have to analyse the performance. In the first 30 minutes we created three or four chances to score, but Everton’s level we knew well. Their biggest quality is set pieces and [winning] the second ball. We worked a lot on it but maybe not enough.”
Albion lost Billy Gilmour to a straight red card and the midfielder will now be absent for the FA Cup tie against Wolves on Wednesday and the next two Premier League fixtures away to Fulham and at home to Nottingham Forest. De Zerbi admitted that his team are missing important players like Joao Pedro and Kaoru Mitoma, although Julio Enciso made his long-awaited return as a second-half substitute.
“I don’t love making excuses but are playing too often without injured players, and that maybe explains a lot of draws for us. Without Mitoma it’s a problem for us," added De Zerbi.
“I would like only one thing – to have all players available to play. It’s difficult for Brighton to play without so many players – we have not got 25 players on the same level. I don’t know if Mitoma can play on Wednesday, but without him we will be ready and try to win. The same at Fulham and then in Rome in the Europa League.”