Albion manager Mark McGhee warned derby rivals Crystal Palace today: "You won't outmuscle us."

The Seagulls were eventually overpowered at Stoke in their last Championship fixture a fortnight ago.

McGhee is expecting a different sort of challenge at Withdean tomorrow as Palace try to avenge Albion's stunning 1-0 win at Selhurst Park last month.

"The fact that we won up there means nothing if we lose to them at home," he warned.

"They will be smarting a little bit and they will think they'll come here and pick up their game and have a real go at us.

"That's fine. I'm not sure that physically they are stronger than us. Stoke were. We outplayed them in the first half but in the second half they were physically too strong for us.

"I don't see Palace like that. They have certain strengths but I don't think they are a team who are necessarily going to come here, roll up their sleeves and beat us up.

"They are not big enough and ugly enough to beat us up, so they are going to have to outplay us and, with the quality of our play recently, we shouldn't have any fears."

McGhee wants his players to recapture the form they showed in their last Withdean outing, a 1-1 draw against Wolves, in the quest for only their second home win of the season.

"Against Wolves our first half performance was certainly as good as in the time I've been here," he said. "Some people have said to me it was as good as it has ever been for half-an-hour in that first half, so we're not playing badly. We just have to convert our good play and possession into goals."

McGhee was back in Southern Ireland last night to watch another eircom Premier Division match.

He went there on a scouting mission eight days ago in his search for a centre forward and centre half.