Dale Stephens has urged Albion to forget any “doom and gloom” and believe in their home form.

The Seagulls are preparing to tackle Manchester United as they look to bounce back from the tame opening day defeat at Watford.

Stephens said the manner of the performance at Vicarage Road was even more of a disappointment than the defeat itself.

Chris Hughton and his squad have been poring over the gory details – and thinking back to their highly respectable home form of last term.

Stephens told The Argus: “With Watford being the first game, we needed to start strong.

“It took us a little while to get going last year and we were conscious we wanted a fast start this season.

“But it’s only one game. We have still got a lot of football to be played and it’s not all doom and gloom.”

Stephens is aware of widespread criticism of Albion’s performance on the first day.

The midfielder said: “It was a disappointing start to the season, more performance-wise than result really.

“We had a decent enough pre-season and we have come in this week and dissected the game and taken out what we need from it.

“We have got a massive game to start everyone going again.”

Albion are likely to be missing right-back Bruno while United boss Jose Mourinho has revealed he expects to have the same squad as beat Leicester City on the opening night.

That means Marcos Rojo and Nemanja Matic, both of whom started at the Amex in May, miss out along with Sergio Romero, Antonio Valencia, Diogo Dalot and Ander Herrera.