Gus Poyet has warned the rest of the Championship to beware once the Albion chief is able to field his best team.

The Seagulls take on leaders Southampton today still plagued by injuries to key players.

Several of them are creeping closer to a return to full fitness and Poyet believes that will make a big difference.

He told The Argus: “We should get better when we've got the main players back.

“With all respect to the other players, it’s not the same when you have got a player like Jara (Reyes) from the Premiership who is not available, or Tano (Mauricio Taricco) maybe not fit for 90 minutes every week, when you are without Adam El-Abd for a game like this and Vicente at his best.

“Those players can take any team to another level. That depends on if they are all fit together.

“I think then we can then beat anyone at any time. It would be a totally different game this Saturday with the whole team.

“If we get out our best 11 I would say be careful, the opposition will look at us in a different way as well.

“We are not far from that, two or three weeks away. I don’t know if it will be in the next home game against Coventry but in the following one against Forest it would be nice to have the best team out.

“You know how important it is at Christmas time, when you play so many games, to go through that period with everybody fit.

“We had an absolutely terrible run and we are two points from the play-offs, which shows how competitive it is and how many points people are going to drop.”

Albion ended nine matches without a victory in their last outing against Barnsley at The Amex. Poyet is generally satisfied with the way his promoted side, currently tenth, have performed so far.

He added: “I would say three games have been disappointing, Palace, Watford away and maybe Millwall or Ipswich. The games against Leicester, Leeds, Liverpool and Birmingham were performances you need to accept. You cannot perform well all the time.

“It looks like we've had two or three that affected the team. I'm quite happy with the rest.”