West Ham United 0 Brighton 3

The wiseacres say that to stay up Brighton must win the necessary points at home. Our away form – one point, one goal – has been unconvincing but I had a good feeling prior to the West Ham match last night after a large gin and tonic (this column is sponsored by Hendricks and Fevertree) and a decent glass of red with my duck confit.

The taxi driver that took me to the last home game v Everton – a bombastic Spurs supporting South African – said Brighton needed more quality (he had chairman Tony Bloom in the back of his cab and told him the same), a view endorsed by Chris Hughton’s team mate at Spurs and friend Garth Crooks, but my view is that we must not break up our team spirit.

Take the club captain Bruno. He is 34 and reminds me of the old Manchester City right back Tony Book who was such a stalwart of the Joe Mercer/Malcolm Allison side of the sixties and what a team that was. He earned his place, it was not due to his experience, and Bruno is much the same.

West Ham were roundly beaten and that was more the story with the inevitable pessimism surrounding manger Slaven Bilic’s survival. They are a team of individuals bought in expensively, like the £25m Aunatovic, played some pretty football but Brighton took them apart with ease. The SKY commentators rightly praised the Lewis Dunk/Shane  Duffy combo at the heart of the defence, as good as any in the division.

Brighton now lie in tenth place. We need another 28 points and, whilst it never goes like that, I can see foresee home points against Huddersfield, Burnley, Crystal Palace, Stoke, Swansea, Leicester, Bournemouth Watford and West Ham.

One of the features of the Premier to date is the poor form of middle-ranking clubs like Everton, West Ham and Leicester. We have picked up 4 points against the first two which you might not have predicted. It’s also heartening that when we played the big boys – Manchester City who are rampant and Arsenal – we may have lost but kept the score down, essential for our goal difference.

Although there is speculation that Sussex CCC might dispense with coach Mark Davis sporting life by the coast is – like the weather – breezy.