Gus Poyet wants his budget boosted next season to turn Albion into genuine Championship play-off contenders.

The Seagulls have more than tripled their crowds since moving from Withdean to The Amex.

Commercial spin-offs have also multiplied and Poyet, who signed a new five-year contract in September, is confident extra funds will gradually filter through for him to buy better players.

He told The Argus: “I’m the type of manager who, if you give me all the money in the world, I like it. They say with that comes pressure. Give it to me, I’ll take it, I’ve got no problem with that.

“How big the change is going to be is the chairman’s decision but we will increase for sure.

“That was the idea all the time of the long-term contract, slowly getting better and stronger.

“I would like to start the season thinking ‘Yes, now it’s a proper top six challenge’. I said at the beginning of the season it’s not now. We are there because we are a decent team, not because we should be there.

“Over the 46 games the teams that have got the strongest squad, better and more experienced players that earn the most are going to be there for sure, or it’s a terrible failure. Us? We’ll see.”

Albion, seventh, head for fourth-placed Middlesbrough tomorrow with Poyet plotting more loan deals with Premier League clubs in January following the signing of Chilean international Gonzalo Jara Reyes from West Brom.

“It’s a great option,” Poyet said. “If we want to get better and bring quality we need to look higher and that means Premier League or somewhere else in the world. We’re working on it.

“Gonzalo is the type of player who we could not afford if he wasn’t playing for another team who could help us with the wages. That is something we need to see for next year.

“From what we know there are ten or 12 teams able to pay that kind of money. We don’t pay that, so we are lucky West Brom help us a lot.”

Derry City left-back Danny Lafferty has been on trial with Albion this week but Poyet added: “I don’t like it (trialists).

“It’s part of the game and part of the system we are in, because the players we like are earning too much money and we cannot get them, so we need to see if there are other options.”