The irony of the situation is not lost on Henrik Bjordal.

The higher Albion go, the harder it will be for the Norwegian teenager to break into the first team.

If they are promoted to the Premier League, the likely next step in Bjordal's development will be to go out on loan.

He has potential. Chris Hughton took him with the first team for the game at Birmingham before Christmas.

Bjordal impressed again for the under-23s against West Ham at Lancing on Monday evening.

The difficulty for Bjordal, bought from the Norwegian top flight a year ago, is that he is a winger. Albion are well off in that department, so richly resourced that Kazenga LuaLua (below) has been loaned to Championship rivals Queens Park Rangers for the rest of the season.

The Argus: Bjordal, 19, told The Argus: "I didn't come here to play too much under-23 football. I was hoping I would be close to first team level. I want to play at as higher level as possible, of course.

 

"I feel like I have made progress, but it's a promotion team. It's very difficult to come in, I know that.

"I came straight after they signed Anthony (Knockaert). Solly (March) was injured then and Kaz, so things looked easier. Now you have (Jiri) Skalak, Anthony, Kaz, Solly, Murph (Jamie Murphy), so now it's difficult.

"Anthony is a player I like to watch and learn from. He's a skilful player who likes to beat his man. I'm the same type of player and I want to do the same sort of things as him, so of course I want to train with the first team and try to see what he's doing, to be as good as him.

"It can be a good thing for me and a bad thing for me if the club goes up.

"It's more difficult to play a game when the team is top of the table but I like that challenge. It's good to be around a team who wins almost every week."

Bjordal has grown up and adapted quickly in his first year of three with Albion.

They signed him for around £300,000 from his local team, Aalesund. He has stepped into a different environment.

"It's something else," Bjordal said. "I wouldn't say speaking a new language, because my English is okay, but you are used to living at home and then you are all alone in a new country.

"It's not the easiest thing, but I'm happy now.

"I've got three sisters and my mum and dad. I played for my home club, Alleseund, so friends as well.

"I played for them in the first team for two seasons, in the top league, playing against good teams. It's not easy to compare. In the under-23 league there are good players.

"The stadium holds 10,000. Normally there were 7,000 maybe. It's a little bit different from playing at Crawley! It's a bit more silent than I was used to."

English football has always been a big noise in Norway, less so a side in the Championship on the south coast rather than the northern powerhouses.

Bjordal said: "I was a Liverpool fan growing up, so Steven Gerrard has always been my favourite player.

"I was watching a lot of English football. It's very big in Norway. You get a favourite team, like United or Liverpool, and everybody wants to play in England, so when Brighton came in for me it was difficult to say no.

"I felt I did well in Norway, playing from when I was 16-years-old. Clubs came to watch, so I wasn't surprised, but it's a good club so I was happy.

"I'd heard about them, but I didn't have a clue that they were top of the league. It was a surprise last year that they were so good.

"They sent me a video of the facilities and I was thinking 'What is this?' I didn't know they were so modern."

The Argus: Bjordal (above), hampered by a hamstring injury against Whitehawk just before the season started, has been contending with another adjustment.

"At Allesund we played on an artificial pitch and trained at the stadium," he said. "That's different. If you want to be a top player you need to start training on grass. The biggest games are played on grass.

"When you pass on the artificial surface it doesn't bump, then you come to Crawley on a winter night, it can be a little bit bumpy. But the best thing is the normal grass, it's no problem."

Less of a problem than Bjordal faces fighting his way towards the front of a queue of wide men.