Albion boss Chris Hughton has played down being top of the Championship.

The Seagulls moved above Newcastle with a 2-0 win against ten-man Leeds United at the Amex last night.

The Toon will return to the summit if they beat Birmingham at home today but Hughton’s main focus is on the eight-point gap Albion have opened up over third-placed Reading, who host Sheffield Wednesday.

Hughton told The Argus: “There’s every chance we won’t be top. It’s a nice feeling going ahead of everybody and getting the three points, because not everybody can win.

“Some results will go for us and some against us, which is normal. For where we are the gap below us is more important than the gap above us.”

Two penalties, by Glenn Murray in the 23rd minute and his replacement Tomer Hemed eight minutes from time, stretched Albion’s unbeaten run to 14 matches and made it 13 clean sheets out of 20.

Leeds midfielder Kalvin Phillips was sent-off for conceding the first spot-kick by handling Lewis Dunk’s toe-poke on the line.

Hughton said: “It was tough because we were up against a good team. Probably the only negative is there was too big a gap between the first and second goals and at that stage anything can happen. It would have been nice to get that second goal earlier.

“If I look at some of our performances last season and earlier this season, I don’t think we’ve got to those heights yet, but maybe we are in some ways a bit of a different team. We are certainly resilient and at this moment keep clean sheets.”

Winger Jamie Murphy will be assessed after coming off in the second half with a groin injury.