Charlie Oatway has been ruled out of Albion's promotion challenge for at least two weeks.

A recurrence of left knee trouble robs the Seagulls of the competitive midfielder for Saturday's home game against in-form Hull.

Oatway will also miss next Wednesday's Withdean sell out against Barnet plus the trip to promotion rivals Hartlepool three days later. He then faces a race to be fit for the visit by runaway leaders Chesterfield on March 24.

Albion performed well after Oatway limped off with the injury in the early stages of last Saturday's win at Leyton Orient, but boss Micky Adams believes his absence contributed to Tuesday's dismal 2-1 defeat at Scunthorpe.

"We missed Charlie's influence and passion," said Adams. "He's had fluid drained off the knee and an injection, which will hopefully settle it down. He is ruled out for at least a couple of weeks."

Adams is pondering team selection for Saturday. He accused the players of short changing the fans in the first half at Scunthorpe.

They were in for training at nine o'clock yesterday morning after arriving home at 3.30am.

Andy Crosby and Lee Steele, both substituted on Tuesday, played in the reserves last night.

"I am going to have to think about a lot of things," Adams said. "Most of the teams we have lost against, apart from Southend, are outside the top ten. That means there is a bad attitude in the way they apply themselves to some games.

"What I cannot handle and what I am not going to have at this club is if I don't see effort. I try to protect my players, but I won't protect them from that.

"They showed effort in the second half, but that was only after we had put some enthusiasm into them.

"I am not going to short change the fans and that is why the players were in for training early yesterday morning, like those supporters who paid to watch them and then had to go to work."

Albion's home match against Darlington on Easter Monday, April 16, is a 1pm kick-off.