'A lot of pain' – Another major injury blow for Brighton ahead of Southampton

Brighton are again set to be without skipper Lewis Dunk as they visit bottom-placed Southampton on Saturday at St Mary’s.

The central defender suffered a rib injury in the FA Cup win against Chelsea, leaving the action at half-time, and subsequently missed the 3-0 league victory over the Blues.

Head coach Fabian Hurzeler said: “It is an issue where I can’t say it will take two weeks or three weeks. Everyone knows Lewis, he is trying really hard to get back on the training pitch as quick as possible.

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“But, at the moment, he has a lot of pain and we really have to go day by day. It is an area near the ribs, so I think everyone who had something with the ribs knows it can be very painful.”

Brighton have won five of their last seven games in all competitions, and bounced back from being thrashed 7-0 at Nottingham Forest to beat Chelsea in both league and FA Cup.

Hurzeler would not be drawn into talking on hopes for European qualification ahead of the Saints game, but said: “Internally, we have clear goals and clear vision.

“But it is game by game. The Premier League and our season has shown things go from here to here.

“We worked hard for this momentum and it’s now about keeping that.

“After the loss to Forest, we tried to get back the intensity from the start of the season.

“We lost this intensity and energy through the season so we said we want to go back to our roots, back to the things that made us strong

“We want to be a team that is very hard to beat. We play against Southampton but we also play against ourselves and our limits.

“I demand from my team that we go with this intensity against Chelsea, but also Southampton so we have no difference in our approach.”

James Milner (hamstring), Igor Julio (hamstring), Jason Steele (shoulder), Ferdi Kadioglu (toe) remain sidelined but Pervis Estupinan (muscular) and Solly March (muscular) “are an option.”

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