Brighton and Hove Albion Talking Point: Hughton continues to get the best out of his players

But make no mistake, it was the understated manager who masterminded the convincing victory over West Brom.

Hughton will have been as disappointed as anyone that Albion failed to add to their strike force during the transfer window.

It has made an already difficult job to keep them up in the first season that much harder.

There has been no bleating. He just continues to get the absolute maximum out of the players at his disposal.

My Twitter feed was brimming pre-match with moans about the side Hughton selected.

Why was record signing Jose Izquierdo not in the starting line-up? Leave out Solly March or Pascal Gross for the Colombian. Why was Mathew Ryan still in goal?

Hughton got it spot-on by naming the same eleven that picked up the first point a fortnight earlier at Watford.

They played well there, even before Watford were reduced to ten men.

Nobody deserved to be dropped. Not Gross or Ryan. Like the other newcomers, they need more than three matches to settle into a new team, new league and new country.

Not March, who across the first three games as a whole was Albion's best attacking player.

Hughton was vindicated. Gross scored twice, Ryan made two important saves, March played a part in two of the goals and demonstrated admirable discipline out of possession in tracking back to keep a lid on the threat from the fleet-footed Oliver Burke (below) once West Brom were 3-0 down and desperate.

So Jose, greeted warmly by the Amex faithful as he warmed up in the first half after his late cameo at Watford, remained on the bench.

There will be other days for him, as there will for every member of the squad. They will all be needed if Albion are to survive.

There may be fewer matches than in the Championship, but the physical and mental demands in the Premier League are greater due to the sharp decline in the share of possession against higher quality and more punishing opposition.

Albion are going to be at full pelt in every game to compete. That had as much to do with West Brom's late rally as the psychology of sitting on a commanding lead.

Another aspect overlooked by the selection detractors is that Hughton knows his players better than anyone. He works with them every day in training.

International breaks are disruptive in that respect, too many players away with their countries to prepare as forensically as normal for the next match.

Hughton was operating ahead of West Brom's visit with a depleted squad, a disadvantage on one hand, evidence of quality on the other.

Consider the spine of the side against West Brom. Ryan, Shane Duffy, Davy Propper and Tomer Hemed were all on World Cup qualifying duty.

If you listen to or read some of the opinions of pundits and supporters alike, you could be forgiven for thinking Albion have added a bunch of nobodies to a group of players incapable of cutting it at the top level.

That is disrespectful both to those that were already here and so successful, and those that have joined them. Both they and Hughton warrant a greater degree of trust.

Garth Crooks (above), his ex-Tottenham colleague, said Gross's display merely papered over the cracks and warned the side is not good enough to survive in its current state.

Hughton will not be fooled by one encouraging win and one of his former team-mates may be proved right in the long run.

But under his astute leadership, the manner of the victory against West Brom offered hope Albion can remain competitive until the next chance to rectify the striker situation in January.

And it has dispelled the gloomy forecasts of the merchants of doom, predicting that Derby's worst-ever Premier League record of one victory and 11 points would be in jeopardy.