Chris O’Grady has hinted he wants to stay with Albion – and compete with Leon Best for a starting role.

The Seagulls frontman is convinced he is good enough to help his side up the Championship table after returning from a loan stint at Sheffield United feeling match fit.

Blades boss Nigel Clough is very keen to take him back north to help in their League One promotion push.

O’Grady admits he is unsure what his future holds but he has indicated he would relish continuing his recent improvement with the Seagulls.

He wants to turn a “negative into a positive” at the Amex by bouncing back from his tough first half of the season.

O’Grady, on target in Sunday’s FA Cup defeat by Arsenal, told The Argus: “I was brought to the club in July and, at every club I’ve played for in the last five or six years which had led me to here, I’ve achieved. My career has been progressive.

“It would be too easy just to give up and for it to have not been successful. I’ve worked hard in everything and it’s too easy to say ‘it just didn’t work out’.

“It’s fine to say that if you have given everything and not been good enough but I don’t think that is the case.”

O’Grady believes current boss Chris Hughton will give him every chance to be the main man up front, despite the recent loan arrival of Best from Blackburn.

He added: “Competition is a good thing. Competition is not so good when you are just there to make the numbers up really.

“It’s a case of me playing well and not allowing anyone else in the team – raising my level. It’s a squad of players all deemed good enough to play on any given day.

“That’s what it didn’t feel like before. I felt like I was here in a large squad and it wasn’t really competition.”