Murphy: Hopefully there's more goals to come now

Albion winger Jamie Murphy hopes his strike yesterday will kick-start a goalscoring spree from now until the end of the season.
Jamie Murphy scores against Reading. Picture by Phil Westlake (PW Sporting Photography)Jamie Murphy scores against Reading. Picture by Phil Westlake (PW Sporting Photography)
Jamie Murphy scores against Reading. Picture by Phil Westlake (PW Sporting Photography)

Murphy netted his fourth goal of the season in the 3-0 win against Reading and is now targeting to better his six-goal haul from last year.

With Glenn Murray, Tomer Hemed, Sam Baldock and Anthony Knockaert all in double figures, Murphy said: "I've been disappointed not to score more to be honest, so to get the goal and my first one in the league at home this year is always good. Hopefully I can score a few more important ones.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"My target is to always score more than the year before. Last year I got six and I'm on four, including the cup this season, so hopefully I can get more than the six."

The goal was Murphy's first since the 2-0 victory at Bristol City in November. He ran on to Dale Stephens' slide-rule pass before clinically chipping the ball over Reading keeper Ali Al Habsi.

He said: "It helped that I made my mind up pretty early what I was going to do. Sometimes when you change your mind, that's when you make a mistake so I was delighted to see it hit the net.

"It was a great clearance from big Shane Duffy at the other end and the goal then came from countering quickly."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Albion players were not aware Newcastle and Huddersfield had drawn in the 3pm kick-offs but that soon changed when Baldock gave Brighton the lead.

Murphy said: "I wasn't aware, the only thing I noticed was when the crowd were singing 'we're top of the league', I thought they must have not won.

"That was the only way I knew but we were just concentrating on ourselves. It was a big game today and we put in a very professional performance."

Murphy feels the Seagulls, who are now five games unbeaten, are getting back to their best and said: "It's two wins in a row now. We're not quite back to the top level we can be at but we're doing well. Every game is different, so we'll look forward to Tuesday now.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"It's a good opportunity for us now to try to get a little bit of a gap. It's up to us to go again on Tuesday like we did today."

Murphy hopes Albion will produce a better performance than in the 2-0 defeat at Newcastle in August and said: "We played them away from home and they got the win, so we want to try to change that down here with a better performance and try to win the game,especially at home.

"With the great backing of the fans, I'm sure it will be a great night."

Back to the top of the table with 13 games left, is the title now a target? Murphy said: "First and foremost, it's to get promoted. It would make such a big difference to everyone at the club if we get promoted so we all know our aim and we're all working hard to try to get there."