Manager Chris Hughton has spoken of his frustration at seeing Brighton waste another chance to lift the Championship title following defeat to Bristol City at the weekend.
Hosting Lee Johnson’s side at the Amex Stadium for the game, Brighton went down one nil on the day and for the gaffer he felt it was important to separate the emotion of the season we’ve had from the disappointment of losing and missing out on lifting the title trophy in front of the home fans.
Speaking to the Official Site in his post game press conference with the players taking a lap of honour, he explained.
‘What we have to do is separate the two (lap of honour and losing). What we saw with the lap of honour was about the season, the supporters and club thanking the players, and vice versa. The supporters have been magnificent all season. But there is disappointment because we`ve had two opportunities to clinch the title, and now we`ve got a very tough game away to Aston Villa.’
Hughton went on to say that it’s all about victory at Aston Villa now because clearly we were the better side on the day, we just lacked that final touch of quality.
‘There`s no doubt that we were the better side today, if any team was going to score it was going to be us. We had a lot of attempts and crosses; we probably couldn`t have put in any more crosses in that second-half period. We just lacked that little bit of quality and probably made it too easy for them to defend. They`ve got two big centre-halves who are good at what they do, and we didn`t put them and the goalkeeper under enough pressure. Sometimes that happens. We`ve had a good week of training, recovered well from the last game and there was a good feel before the game, but it didn`t quite happen today.’
The other frustration for Hughton was in not seeing the side bounce back from the earlier defeat to Norwich City, but he knows that’s unlike us given how we responded to knocks so far this campaign.
‘Generally, when we`ve had a disappointing result, we`ve bounced back from it. The last couple of games we haven`t been able to do that. But how much of that is down to being promoted early and the emotional feeling, they`re the things you don`t know, but on the balance of play today, we should have won the game. We conceded a poor goal in the first half that wasn`t like us, and we didn`t make the most of the opportunities we had and the areas we got into.’
Looking ahead to the final game of the campaign against Aston Villa next Sunday, Hughton added.
‘It`s still very much in our hands, and it`s a big one for us. Having gained promotion, the big feeling that`s very close to that is winning the title. That would mean everything to this group of lads and this football club. We have a week to prepare and we`ll have to show better quality than what we did today, because we`re against another team in good form.’
