'It's a sore one for us' Brighton boss Graham Potter reacts after painful Crystal Palace loss

Albion have lost three and drawn five so far this year and their last top flight victory came against Bournemouth on 28 December.

Brighton had 24 shots during their painful 1-0 loss against Crystal Palace, their best-ever tally in a Premier League game. But Jordan Ayew's goal, his seventh of the season, sealed a victory for Palace.

"It's a sore one for us," said Potter. "I thought we, apart from the scoreline, did a lot well in the game, had chances, didn't take them and of course if you don't...

"They didn't do too much to get their goal. We were the better team up to that point but you have to put the ball in the net. We created stuff, we tried, had shots, had chances, they didn't have too much.

"I feel for the boys. We have to dust ourselves down. There's enough quality there. We showed enough to say that we can move forward, that's what we've got to do.

"It's not a nice feeling when you lose a game. We didn't deserve to lose the game. We just need to focus on the positives, what we've done well."

"You can't feel sorry for yourself. Sometimes you need a bit of luck - we didn't get too much of that today. We have to keep working to turn those little margins in our favour.

"We know every game in this league is tough for us. Today there was a lot of effort and a lot of quality. I liked the performance, how we played. Over the course of the game we were quite good."

Palace boss Roy Hodgson was pleased with the victory and praised his star man Wilfried Zaha for keeping his discipline in a heated environment.

Zaha had a spat with Albion substitute Ezequiel Schelotto in the first half which resulted in a booking for the Brighton man. Schelotto hit Zaha with the ball and the Ivory Coast international,

who had been getting stick from the home crowd, confronted the Brighton player. Schelotto was booked but a few minutes later he taunted the Palace player once more, shouting towards Zaha and making a cry-baby gesture at the Palace winger.

"His discipline was good today," said Hodgson. "It was a minor incident, but in a game of this importance and dimension it happens and the importance of the match for both sets of fans is massive. People don’t think it’s a derby but to the fans it is.

"I thought the game was played in the right spirit and we had one of the best referees in the country, so if anything happened Martin was there straight away to deal with it."

The win appears to lift Palace clear of relegation danger but Hodgson is taking little for granted.

"You can never say never, it’s good to get back to back wins and we’ve got two important games coming up. If they go well, we can kiss relegation goodbye.

"We’ve got players coming back from injury so suddenly my squad looks different, whereas earlier in the season we needed all hands in deck."

"It was a really good performance from the team, a battling performance. The pitch was heavy but I thought we kept in the game well and got our reward in the end.

"We should have more than one today and we missed two chances at the end but that is what happens when a team is losing, they send players forward. We had chances at the end, we had consistent moments towards the end of the game."