Brighton & Hove Albion boss Chris Hughton says his side should use Saturday's FA Cup win at Brentford to help continue to build their confidence as they prepare for next weekend's Championship trip to Charlton Athletic.Albion will be aiming for a hat-trick of wins in the nation's capital when they travel to The Valley on Saturday, after an impressive 2-0 win at Griffin Park in the cup, and Hughton feels their recent form stands them in good stead for the rest of the campaign.
He said, "It was very important for the team to do well in the FA Cup and you'd like to think it will breed that bit of confidence.
"When you're in the league position we are, then of course the initial aim is to make life a bit more comfortable, but at the moment it’s very difficult to gauge how a season can go because of the nature of this league.
"Of course first and foremost it's about making life more comfortable for ourselves. I'm realistic about where we are at the moment and there are a lot of good teams around us so first and foremost it's about starting to creep up that league."
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Meanwhile, with the addition of Greg Halford on Friday, Hughton looks to be fairly satisfied with his defensive options at the club, and says he has been particularly impressed - if not surprised - by the central defensive pairing of Gordon Greer and Lewis Dunk."The two centre halves are very experienced players and I've seen an awful lot of them, but we had a very young midfield that had to dig in and be very disciplined at times and certainly I was delighted to see that from them.
"I've seen quite a bit of Lewis over the years and I've seen him really develop as a player and he has become a consistent performer and if you've got a centre half that can score goals then it's a real asset.
"If I look at our deliveries from set plays, that was probably, up until then, our only decent delivery. Our set-piece deliveries had been very poor, so it was a super delivery and it gave us a chance."
Hughton confirmed he hopes to have Adrian Colunga, Jake Forster-Caskey and Joe Bennett all back and available for the trip to Charlton.
"Adrian was a little bit sore from Monday’s game and we thought he’d be okay, but he’ll be assessed this week. With Joe Bennett it was a very slight hamstring problem and we're expecting him to be fit for the next game.
"Jake was ill up until Friday, but he is somebody who has played an awful lot of football, so in some ways we look forward to him coming back and sometimes that little break of a game or a couple of games won’t do him any harm."
[h=3]ALBION V brentford
[/h]saturday 17th january, KICK-OFF 3PM
[h=3]Albion v ipswich
[/h]SATURDAY 24TH JANUARY, kick-off 3pm
[h=3]Albion v nottingham forest
[/h]SATURDAY 7TH februARY, kick-off 3pm
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