Albion aim to make Bristol Rovers pay tonight for nearly ruining the £1.5 million sale of Bobby Zamora to Spurs.

Rovers included a 30 per cent sell-on clause when they offloaded Zamora to the Seagulls for £100,000 three years ago.

Albion chairman Dick Knight unsuccessfully tried to renegotiate Rovers' cut of the deal which took Zamora to White Hart Lane last month.

Knight revealed: "I attempted to negotiate with Bristol Rovers to reduce that percentage because, as I said to their chairman (Geoff Dunford), frankly it was getting in the way of the deal.

"In the end they decided not to reduce it, despite initially indicating that they might, so we paid £420,000 to Bristol Rovers. Let's hope we beat them!"

Albion boss Steve Coppell is also unimpressed by the windfall Rovers received for Zamora.

"I saw them pre-season," he said. "They are a different team from where they were last year.

"They have supplemented their squad, probably with the income they have derived from the Bobby Zamora sale.

"They seem to be the main beneficiaries of that sale, even though for the last three years he probably hasn't even been to Bristol, so we are partly responsible for the strength of the team we are going to be playing against."

Albion are forced to make at least one change for tonight's Carling Cup first round clash at The Memorial Stadium.

Loan striker Darius Henderson, on target from the penalty spot in Saturday's 3-1 win at Oldham, is unavailable as Reading want him to be eligible for the competition for them.

That means youth team product Chris McPhee from Eastbourne starts up front alongside Saturday's two-goal hero Leon Knight following the 20-year-old's prolific pre-season.

Michel Kuipers and Robbie Pethick will probably both be on the bench against their old club. Kuipers has lost out to Ben Roberts in the battle to be No. 1.

Roberts, a League Cup finalist with Middlesbrough, was sent-off after ten minutes on his last visit to Rovers when playing for Millwall.

"It will be very tough," he said. "They had a really good result on Saturday, winning 2-1 at Scunthorpe."

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