GUS Poyet has warned Albion are still a long way short of being a club equipped for the Premier League.

The Seagulls head for relegated Wolves tomorrow just a point and two places outside the Championship play-off zone.

Poyet is pleased with the progress they are making in their second season back in the second tier but he insists the Seagulls still have a lot of work to do to become a club capable of going up and staying up.

The Uruguayan, celebrating the third anniversary of his appointment as manager, said: “I don’t want to go up just for the sake of it and lose 3-0, 4-0 or 5-0 in the Premier League. Or you get up and resign, that is the other way.

“I would prefer, if we have got the chance to get up in the next few years, to stay there.

“We need to get stronger. We need to get more quality, all the options. We are better, I am not crying or complaining.

“We are much better. I am very pleased with the options we have got but there is always something you can improve.”

Reading and Southampton, promoted in first and second place last season, are currently both in the Premier League relegation zone without a win.

Poyet said: “It’s not easy. I think there is less of a gap between League One and the Championship than the Championship and the Premier League, although the gap from League One to the Championship is getting bigger.

“The teams that come up next year are going to have to change a lot, because the Championship is becoming really strong, competitive more than the quality. The Premier League is quality.

“If you go to one of the top ten and don’t perform at your best it could be anything. You could concede four, five or six and that is not nice.

“I would like to try to find the way that, when we are lucky enough to get up, we are strong enough to be a proper team in the Premier League.”

Poyet has defensive midfielder Liam Bridcutt back from a one-match ban for the trip to Molineux tomorrow but centre Adam El-Abd is still sidelined by a hamstring and has withdrawn from the Egypt squad for next week’s friendly against Georgia in Tbilisi.