Hughton’s bow is a slam Dunk for Albion

CHRIS Hughton could not hide his delight at returning to management after two late goals dumped Premier League-chasing Brentford out of the FA Cup in his first game as Brighton boss.

Top scorer Lewis Dunk broke the deadlock before Chris O’Grady’s first for the club ensured the visitors progressed to the fourth round for an impressive sixth successive season.

It was also a second away win in a row for the Seagulls and, despite their poor start to the season, Hughton stressed he wants maintain some continuity around the club.

“It’s great to be back,” he said.

“The first day on the training ground hit home how much you miss it and, even though it’s not a massive period of time that I’ve been out, you miss being in the dugout as well.

“We certainly took it seriously because, on the back of a very good league win at Fulham, we were very keen to build on that, either as a performance or as a win.

“For me it’s about trying to get the balance between a philosophy of play that the club has seen over the past four or five years, with the various managers that have come in, and putting down my stamp on the team.

“I don’t want to change things dramatically. I would like to tweak things a little bit but we have some good passers and I want to use them.”

After a slow start the game exploded into life, with Andre Gray inexplicably skewing wide from Jake Bidwell’s cross and Harlee Dean also heading a good chance wide.

Brighton then hit the post three times, with Solly March rattling the woodwork after tackling Moses Odubajo and substitute O’Grady twice striking the upright with low drives.

With two minutes left, Dunk headed his sixth of the season from March’s free-kick and O’Grady scored on the counter to make it three straight defeats for Mark Warburton’s side , much to the manager’s dis-plaeasure.

“We have to learn from it,” Warburton said. “It was very similar to the Wolves game last week but I think the stats will show we had even more domination.

“The fact is if you lose a game of football 2-0 and the away side has had all the possession, then you have a problem.

“We have to put the ball in the back of the net and take care in front of our own goal.

“I’m not worried because the way we played was very good but we have to be more clinical.

“We have a really good squad. They are where they are for a reason.

“It’s not luck that they’re sat in the top six and they are frustrated to only be in the top six at the moment.”