Brighton & Hove Albion boss Chris Hughton tonight praised his side's unbeaten start to the season, and put much of it down to an excellent pre-season campaign and clean bill of health.
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Albion are the only unbeaten side in the Championship, and the Seagulls boss said, "We are delighted with the start and I don’t think that anybody here could have expected that we would have started as well as we have.
"When you analyse it, we had a good pre-season with minimal injuries, so we had a good squad to work with.
"At the moment we are doing enough to win games. We probably have not had the ultimate outstanding performance in a game, but that is this division.
"It is very hard to do that, but at the moment we have enough in us to win games, which is great to see.
"We are delighted to be where we are and the massive thing about being on the run that we are on is that we are accumulating points; and our tally for this stage of the season is brilliant.
"With that comes the pressure of staying up there and I think that showed a bit today. We were playing against a side that is finding it tough at the moment and it ended up being a close game – certainly score wise at least."
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With that in mind, Hughton has challenged his side to improve in one area, and wants his players to be more clinical in games; all Albion's wins coming via a one-goal margin."I think that if we really analyse the games in the periods when we are playing the better football and getting into good areas, then we have to be a little bit more clinical and get ourselves a better lead.*
"I would rather be winning games by one goal than not winning, but there have been some games where the margin of victory should have been easier than what it was.
"It’s the only negative, but we are looking quite solid as a team and we started very well again.
"It was a tough night and we had to work very hard to get the second goal. At that stage, the game was in our hands but we made life tough for ourselves by conceding when we did.
"I think that we went through a period in that second half where our game management should have been better; we should have kept the ball.
"However we were worthy winners in the end, based on the performance and two good goals, but no side is going to lay down and die."
[h=3]ALBION V CARDIFF CITY
[/h]SATURDAY 3RD OCTOBER, KICK-OFF 3PM
[h=3]ALBION V *BRISTOL CITY
[/h]TUESDAY 20TH OCTOBER, KICK-OFF 7.45PM
[h=3]ALBION V PRESTON NORTH END
[/h]SATURDAY 24TH OCTOBER, KICK-OFF 3PM
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