Lewis Dunk has been ruled out of Brighton’s Premier League clash with Bournemouth on Tuesday night, while Danny Welbeck and Joel Veltman remain doubts.
The Seagulls are coming off a rampant 4-0 win at Southampton on Saturday thanks to goals from Joao Pedro, Georginio Rutter, Kaoru Mitoma and Jack Hinshelwood.
The win has seen Fabian Hurzeler’s side climb to ninth in the division, only three points behind fifth-placed Bournemouth.
Dunk, Veltman and Welbeck all missed the comfortable win at St Mary’s, with Dunk definitely still out with a rib injury, while Hurzeler has doubts overthe others.
‘I’m still concerned about Joel and concerned about Danny and therefore we have to wait how the training will go today and then we can make a decision, but these two are still doubtful,’ the Brighton boss told a press conference on Monday morning.
‘Doubtful means I don’t know how the training will go today, so we have to wait the training session today and then we can decide what we will do.
‘But in the end we have an important match again on Sunday, so we won’t take any risk and that’s what we’re looking at today.’
Already sidelined for the Seagulls are Igor Julio, James Milner and Ferdi Kadioglu.
The busy schedule sees Brighton host the Cherries on Tuesday and then go to Newcastle on Sunday, in two games which could see how likely they are to be challenging for European places come the end of the season.
On the prospect of European football next season, the manager said: ‘When you win games, there is always a good atmosphere. We are grateful it’s like this but it’s hard work. We need to keep the momentum and understand why we have this momentum.
‘I never look too much at the table. You can only influence how you play. At the end of the season, you can look at the table. But at the moment, it’s game by game and trying to get the best performance out of the players.
‘The key thing at this club is developing young players and the group. We had a lot of new signings when we started. Now it’s about having internal goals on where we want to go.
‘We will see what happens at the end of the season, but it’s too early to talk about reaching Europe. We have to wait for the right moment to talk about it.’
Brighton have responded impressively to their 7-0 mauling at Nottingham Forest earlier this month, winning three games on the bounce in all competitions since then.
The Seagulls defeated Chelsea in both the FA Cup and Premier League before thrashing the Saints at the weekend.
They face a Bournemouth side who are still flying high but are coming off a shock 1-0 loss at home to Wolves at the weekend.
Cherries boss Andoni Iraola was not unhappy with his players and felt they were up against it when Illiay Zabarnyi was sent off just 31 minutes into the game.
‘I think the game is very affected by the red card,’ he said. ‘I analysed my team and I was very happy before it. We have been in the game but they punished us in the minutes after the red card where we have not probably established ourselves.
‘From there we competed really well. It was difficult playing with 10 players for most of the game but the players have done a very good job. I am very proud of the performance of my players.’
