Gus Poyet wants Albion to feel their way back into the Championship.

The manager is making no promises about taking the Seagulls straight into the Premier League with a second successive promotion.

But he has also warned their rivals his side should not be under-estimated.

Albion finished 24th, 20th and 23rd in their last three seasons playing at Championship level at Withdean.

The bookies fancy them to be contenders this time at The Amex but Poyet’s first goal is to get established in the Championship.

He told a fans’ forum at the new stadium last night: “I would like to see the team competing and making me feel we are a Championship club, then we will see.

“I don’t want to start dreaming again. I said last year we were aiming for promotion but for sure the play-offs and we won the league.

“I want to see if we can compete with the players we’ve got, if we can keep improving and get better players with different qualities.

“I want to feel that we are a Championship club and, if I do feel that, be careful!”

The pressure is on other big name managers like Sven Goran Eriksson at Leicester, Steve McLaren at Nottingham Forest and Sam Allardyce at West Ham to go up and Poyet is expecting plenty of casualties.

He said: “From what I’ve seen everybody is going up to the Premiership, 15 teams from the Championship. There are going to be a few managers getting the sack.”

Poyet still wants to strengthen his squad but he is confident winger Kazenga LuaLua, re-signed on loan from Newcastle until January 15, will become a permanent and long-serving Albion player.

He said: “I am sure Kazenga is going to be here for many, many years. Don’t worry about it.”

Chairman Tony Bloom told the audience of about 300 supporters: “Obviously we don’t know exactly what is going to happen this season.

“But I’m very confident in Gus and his staff that they are going to put out a team week in, week out which can compete at this level and see where we go from there.”