Brighton & Hove Albion boss Chris Hughton had no complaints as his side went down 2-1 at Reading tonight, and admitted the hosts were deserved winners.Jamie Mackie struck either side of the break, and Seagulls boss Hughton was also frustrated his side conceded for a second time so soon after Chris O'Grady had levelled from the penalty spot.
He said, "We probably didn't deserve anything out of the game. In the second half we rallied well and got ourselves back in the game, but it was disappointing to concede again within three or four minutes.
*“We fought so hard to get back into the game in that second half and needed to keep the score at 1-1 for a longer period of time, but three or four minutes later you find yourselves 2-1 down, albeit from a fabulous strike, but we’ve got to defend better on both goals.
"It’s a concern when we concede goals and particularly when you feel you can do something about it. We were then at the stage where we had to take chances and throw bodies forward and at that stage it probably could’ve gone either way.
“We could’ve got back in the game because I thought we had to be quite adventurous, but they could’ve capitalised on the spaces we were leaving.
“It was a fairly scrappy type of game and the pitch wasn’t the best, but these are the sort of games where you need to dig deep and get a result whichever way you can.”
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The match also saw Hughton give Emmanuel Ledesma his full debut following his loan move from Middlesbrough.“He [Ledesma] deserved his chance because of what he’s shown in training. I have brought him in on loan, but it was also an opportunity to make changes because we are going into a busy period of games.
“Looking at the result tonight, it didn’t have anything to do with the changes that were made, because I thought Jake Forster-Caskey did quite well at times and showed showed some good energy, Greg [Halford] deserved an opportunity and Kazenga [LuaLua] got 90 minutes under his belt. For me the changes were right, we just didn’t perform well enough on the night.
Finally, the Albion boss revealed that Dale Stephens should be available for the weekend visit of Wolves after being left out as a precaution, while Craig Mackail-Smith is likely to return from a slight hamstring problem.
“He [Stephens] just felt something on Tuesday and he hasn’t trained all week. We could’ve involved him today, but this is a lad who has been out for ten months and couldn’t risk it but we’re very confident he will be involved on at the weekend.”
[h=3]ALBION V WOLVES
[/h]SATURDAY 14TH MARCH, KICK-OFF 3PM
[h=3]ALBION V NORWICH
[/h]FRIDAY 3RD APRIL, KICK-OFF 3PM
[h=3]ALBION V BOURNEMOUTH
[/h]FRIDAY 10TH APRIL, KICK-OFF 7.45PM
Original article