ALBION head into their Amex appetiser against Atletico Madrid on Sunday still unbeaten in pre-season.

Last night’s goalless stalemate against Girona in Palamos followed a 1-1 draw against Norwich on Saturday and wins against Southend, Crawley and Fortuna Dusseldorf.

Manager Chris Hughton was satisfied with the way the Seagulls coped with Girona’s 3-5-2 system and with recent signing Izzy Brown playing most of the match as he used 20 players.

“It was a very good workout against good opposition,” Hughton said. “I’m really pleased, because they changed their whole team at half-time and the second half team was probably stronger.

“That’s the period of the game when you are possibly going to run out of steam, but I thought we were good right the way through.

“The only disappointment is we didn’t make enough off the good areas we got into, but as a unit we did well.

“It was good to see Izzy playing almost 90 minutes, so overall I’m really pleased.

“It’s the sort of style we are going to come up against, a lot of teams will have more possession than us.

“We’ve got to be able to stick in there, try to keep some clean sheets and produce good enough performances to win games.”

Key midfielder Dale Stephens came off at half-time, but Hughton said: “Dale was always going to get 45 minutes. He had no problems.”