We've hit a difficult period - Hughton

Albion boss Chris Hughton admits his side are going through a difficult period after their winless run increased to five games last night.

The Seagulls failed to score for the third successive match after they lost 1-0 at home to Ipswich and Hughton said: "There's no doubt we're finding it difficult to get the goals we need to win football matches.

"If you're not getting them, you've got to make sure that you keep clean sheets. Certainly in the last two home games, we've found that difficult.

"I probably don't think we could have done any more in the second half to try to get back in the game. We got in as many crosses in a half than at any time I've been here but at the minute we're just lacking that way of finding a way to score a goal.

"There's no doubt that this team has done ever so well for a large part of the season. What we generally haven't been able to do is make the changes that perhaps others have. Even today, we weren't able to start Bobby (Zamora), who will be better for the period of time that he was on and weren't able to start James (Wilson) because he was feeling poorly.

"We've hit a little bit of a difficult period at the minute but we just need to show we're a good enough side to come through this."

Albion's Jamie Murphy had an effort ruled out for offside, before a mistake by Lewis Dunk allowed Ipswich's Daryl Murphy to score the only goal of the game and Hughton said: "On a day that you want things to go for you, we make the mistake for the goal but also from what I've seen so far the goal we scored in the first half shouldn't have been disallowed."

Albion had seven players ruled out through injury and Hughton said: "With the injuries, does it make life a little bit more difficult? Yes, of course it does because it means you don't have the opportunity to rotate like some other teams do but we certainly don't want to use that as an excuse."

Ipswich manager Mick McCarthy said: "We've managed to beat one of the big boys, one of the top six. We beat Burnley when we caught them on the hop at the start of the season but we'd lost to Brighton at home and lost to Derby, Middlesbrough and Hull.

"I did think we had an opportunity here tonight because they're kind of depleted a little bit as they've lost a few players.

"But we've been on a good run and I thought we were the better team, to be honest."

Seagulls captain Gordon Greer could return from a tight hamstring for Friday's home match with Wolves but Uwe Hunemeier will be out for around another six weeks with a groin injury.