Albion may just have learnt from the chastening Premier League experience of FA Cup opponents Middlesbrough.

The Seagulls are trying to avoid the fate of the club that pipped them to promotion from the Championship two seasons ago.

Middlesbrough went straight back down and are now trying to go back up again under Tony Pulis after a succession of managerial changes.

Their solitary season in the Premier League resonates disturbingly with some aspects of Albion's campaign so far - a good start, strong defensively, a struggle to score goals, despite the benefit of landing Alvaro Negredo (below).

The Argus: But there is an encouraging contrast in the January transfer window dealings, which signalled the beginning of the end of Aitor Karanka's reign at the Riverside Stadium.

Albion's £14 million club record capture of Jurgen Locadia from PSV Eindhoven, together with interest in adding Newcastle's Aleksandar Mitrovic or another striker before the window closes, demonstrates that owner-chairman Tony Bloom is not about to give up the hard-earned place at the top table without a real fight.

Albion's position after 24 games, 16th and a point above the relegation zone, three off the bottom, is remarkably similar to Middlesbrough's situation at the corresponding stage last season.

They were 15th, also a point clear of the bottom three and two off the foot of the table.

Hopes of survival unravelled from then on. A sequence of three draws and six defeats killed their chances of staying up.

By the time they beat fellow strugglers Sunderland at the end of April and drew with Manchester City, they were doomed.

Three more defeats confirmed relegation, above only Sunderland. They finished with 28 points and just five wins.

They were 12 points adrift of safety with a better goals against record (53) than any other team in the bottom ten but the worst goals for record (27) in the division.

Jonathon Taylor, who reports on Middlesbrough for the Teesside Gazette, said:"Up until just before Christmas things were going very well. They hadn't been in the bottom three at all.

"There was a massive turnover in the summer. They signed about 12 players, many of them without Premier League experience.

"They had one of the best defences, which rivalled anyone's. That kept their heads above water.

"The problem came just before January. On Boxing Day they lost at Burnley and that was the start.

"In January there was an acceptance that they needed a bit more quality going forwward.

"They weren't scoring anywhere near enough goals. At the time Karanka identified two or three players that he wanted.

The Argus: "One was Robert Snodgrass (above), another Jese Rodriguez who is now at Stoke and was then at PSG.

"Ultimately they didn't get them. To be fair, the chairman (Steve Gibson) spent £15 million but that was on Patrick Bamford who had barely kicked a ball for 18 months, Rudy Gestede who had come from a Championship team and (Adlene) Guedera, a central midfielder that they didn't really need at that point.

"They didn't bring any attackers, so as a result the manager started throwing a few grenades in at press conferences, pointing the finger at the club's hierarchy.

"The mood around the club took a nosedive pretty quickly and that coincided with results falling of a cliff.

"The manager, all of a sudden engulfed in the Premier League spotlight, started going into his shell and throwing other people under the bus. It was irretrievable from that moment.

"The January transfer window was the one where I think everyone accepts Boro had a chance to stay up.

"Negredo was excellent. He was one of the few that did have Premier League experience - won the League with Man City - but it was just the feeling he was so isolated. There wasn't the creativity.

"Boro were the lowest scorers in the entire top six the year that they went up.So there was an acceptance they needed creativity.

"Ultimately it just didn't work. The players they brought in were from abroad. It was a combination of the transfer policy and the manager not coping with defeats."

Much has changed at Middlesbrough since they went down, although the recent appointment of ex-West Brom boss Pulis (below) represents a policy U-turn back towards the Karanka era.

The Argus: Taylor said: "You had Aitor Karanka's downfall, Steve Agnew coming in at the end of that Premier League season trying to firefight, the entire Garry Monk reign where the overhaul of players was massive again in the summer.

"Now you look at the squad there are still players in the spine of the team that were there - Ben Gibson, Daniel Ayala, George Friend, Adam Clayton, Grant Leadbitter, Stewart Downing.

"Other than that, the entire coaching team has been and gone. In many ways it has gone full circle.

"When Karanka left and the chairman went for Monk in the summer, rather than keeping hold of Agnew, he wanted Monk to change the philosophy of the team, make it more attacking, more fluid, the Swansea way.

"He spent £15 million on (Britt) Assombalonga, £9 million on (Martin) Braithwaite and another £6.5 million on Ashley Fletcher.

"Now Tony Pulis has come in and you know exactly what you are going to get. It's more like the Aitor Karanka way, a disciplined rearguard.

"The argument has always been really is it style over substance or the other away around? At the moment it has gone back to the results are the important thing and the way of getting results isn't."