Hughton won't be sidetracked by 40-point target

Albion's boss says he does not have a target in mind to reach and insists the sole aim is to get enough points to stay in the top flight.

The Seagulls travel to West Brom, who are winless in 20 league matches, this afternoon and Hughton said: "We never had any targets at the start of the season and there's still no targets.

"The reason why the 40 point mark is one we can all associate with is because of law of averages and that's not a bad one to have in your mind to think about to aim for.

"But the moment you start relying on things like that is when you can be very much in trouble. We have to win as many games as we can, get as many points as we can and hopefully that will be enough to keep us up.

"We go into every game whether it's Chelsea away, Arsenal away, knowing that we want to get some points. We've already alluded to that area in the division where it's very tight, you know you could lose three games on the spin and be in the bottom three.

"That's how tight everything is, so we have to get as many points as we can and all our efforts will go into that."

Hughton expects a difficult match at the Hawthorns today as West Brom look to kick-start their season: "We have to be very guarded. You look at their team on paper and they have got a very good side, a very capable side.

"I think it will be a very difficult game for us. I would think no different now than if we were going there and they were on the end of having won the last three or four games.

"It's a difficult place to go anwyay but I think it will be a very tough game for us."