BOSS Chris Hughton wants a win against Newcastle, not revenge, to give Albion a “decent start” in the Premier League.

The Seagulls were pipped to the Championship title by Hughton’s old club last season.

They go head-to-head again at the Amex on Sunday (4pm), when Albion could trim the early gap between the teams to two points.

Hughton said: “It’s a game we very much want to win. Certainly seven points from the first six games for a newly promoted team can be deemed as a decent start.

“We’ll approach the game looking to win it in which ever way we can, conscious that we are up against a very good Newcastle team at the moment.”

Albion blew the title last season by taking only one point out of nine at the end, but retribution is not on Hughton’s mind.

“There shouldn’t be, because they (Newcastle) deserved it,” he said. “We had opportunities in the last three games to clinch the title and we weren’t good enough at that particular moment to do that.

“All credit goes to Newcastle for doing it and certainly there’s no revenge. We are up against a good team that’s in good form at the moment.”

Newcastle squeezed past Albion in the title race and at the Amex in February, coming from behind late-on to win 2-1.

Hughton said: “It showed we are not too far away from each other, the sort of qualities we’ve got. We both played a similar formation and had a similar way of playing.

“Probably last season we opted a little bit more for two up front. We are using more of a one and a one at the moment, which is very similar to Newcastle.

“So I think there are a lot of similarities generally. They tend to play two wingers in the wide positions, similar to ourselves.

“That’s the reason why I think it was very close between the two clubs and I would imagine it would be close again.”

The visit of Newcastle, fresh from a hat-trick of Premier League wins, is followed by a trip to Arsenal and a home game against Everton for Albion either side of the next international break.

“It’s not being detrimental to anybody, but there are a group of six or seven teams that are going to be more difficult to get results against,” Hughton said.

“I know it can be about your form, fortune and luck on the day, but for whatever points we get, you’d think that on the law of averages they’ll be against the teams outside that top seven.”