If luck does, indeed, even itself out over the course of a season then Albion must surely be due plenty in the six matches which will decide their Championship fate.

They have endured a barrel load of misfortune lately, culminating in a cruel fifth defeat in succession at Highfield Road.

The omens for a change of luck are not good. Phil Prosser coincidentally takes charge of Albion's tough trip to play-off bound Preston tomorrow night.

Remember Prosser? Guy Butters certainly will. The Seagulls' veteran centre half must be wondering what he has done to deserve this.

Butters, victim of a bemusing penalty decision on Saturday, was in the Albion side when Prosser hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in Steve Coppell's first game in charge against Sheffield United at Withdean two seasons ago.

It was big Guy's first and last appearance under Coppell as Albion, 2-0 ahead, lost 4-2 and Prosser nearly caused a riot with some controversial decisions.

The Football League have kept Prosser away from Albion games until now. They could, of course, not have foreseen he would be in the middle with Mark McGhee's side bruised by the latest in a series of disputed penalty decisions against them, but it is hard to imagine a more inflammatory appointment in the circumstances.

McGhee is aware that, to the outsider, he is beginning to sound like a stuck record. Another whinge about a referee, disguising his falling team's shortcomings, is how it may be interpreted by anyone not at Highfield Road on Saturday.

The 18,000 who were would surely appreciate his frustration. "I'm reticent for it to start sounding like excuses," he said. "It's not, it's a fact. If there was a penalty for them there were two for us."

The incident which made McGhee so hot under the collar on a warm afternoon in the West Midlands arrived two minutes into the second half of a tense relegation struggle in which Albion were looking the more composed and confident side.

Referee Mark Cowburn suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, pointed straight to the spot from a Stephen Hughes corner.

Nobody else inside the ground knew what it had been awarded for. Some members of the press guessed, incorrectly, that Butters had been penalised for handball. The truth of the matter did not emerge until afterwards, when McGhee revealed Butters was punished for pulling.

Butters was so upset that he uncharacteristically declined to offer his version of events.

Former Albion manager Micky Adams sympathised with his old club. The Coventry boss said: "I can understand why they would be aggrieved, because I didn't see too much wrong, but the ref obviously spotted an infringement. They don't invent penalties."

Cowburn may well have spotted a bit of pulling by Butters but that is the sort of thing which goes on at corners and free-kicks countless times during a match.

As Adam Virgo pointed out: "The ref has got to be more consistent. We had a case for a penalty towards the end.

"Butts and Dean Hammond were tugged. It looked like a line-out in a rugby game and the referee was standing in front of it. We didn't really get anything from him."

Virgo ensured justice was temporarily done after Gary McSheffrey rammed the penalty into the roof of the net. He rifled in his eighth of the season 15 minutes later from a clever pass by Gary Hart with the outside of his foot.

A draw would have been a satisfactory outcome for Albion and they looked like getting it until, with six minutes left and with four centre forwards on the pitch for Coventry, Steve Staunton of all people popped up to settle matters with a 20-yard shot which went in off a post, the veteran centre half's first goal of the season.

The problems are piling up for the Seagulls. Plagued by injuries and bad luck, not to mention unhelpful results elsewhere, they will now be without Leon Knight for two matches after his tally of bookings reached double figures.

McGhee, encouraged by the debuts of his deadline day loan signings, keeper Alan Blayney and central defender Joe Dolan, remains bullishly upbeat about avoiding the drop. He took the unusual step of giving his crestfallen players a pep talk on the pitch straight after the match.

"The performance of the team was fine," he said. "The shape, the effort, the commitment will get us results. I am in absolutely no doubt we will survive this, I said that to them on the pitch.

"Cheated is not the right word but I think we weren't treated fairly enough. There was inconsistency that really isn't good enough. We have come too far and worked too hard to give it up. Things went against us and we have got to hope that somewhere along the line we'll get the rub of the green.

"I thought Alan Blayney was excellent. His kicking was good, he came for crosses and he made a couple of very good saves. Big Joe looked tired at the end. I was about to take him off and put Virgs to the back when they scored their second goal, but playing a full 90 minutes at this level will have done him a power of good.

"If we are able to put out this team with the addition of Richard Carpenter we will win games. Whether it is tomorrow night at Preston remains to be seen, but we will win a couple of games."

Win or lose you can guarantee the Albion players will be fighting for each other at Deepdale, not against each other like at McGhee's old club Newcastle.

  • ALBION (4-4-2); Blayney 7; Reid 7, Dolan 6, Butters 7, Harding 7; Hart 7, Hammond 6, Oatway 7, Knight 6; Virgo 8, McCammon 6. Subs: Nicolas forHammond (withdrawn 88), Jones for Harding (withdrawn 86), McPhee for McCammon (withdrawn 76),Shaaban, Elphick.
  • Albion bookings: Knight (19) foul, McCammon (38) unsporting behaviour, Virgo (56) foul.
  • Albion scorer: Virgo (62)
  • COVENTRY (4-4-2); Steele; Duffy, Staunton, Page, Hall; Jorgensen, Hughes, Doyle, Dyer; Goater, McSheffrey. Subs: Adebola for Dyer (withdrawn 68), Morrell for Jorgensen (withdrawn 80), Benjamin for Goater (withdrawn 80), Pressman, Whing.
  • Coventry bookings: Doyle (38) foul
  • Coventry scorers: McSheffrey (47) penalty, Staunton (84)
  • Fans view.

Trevor Morgan (Burgess Hill) - I can't remember seeing a penalty where nobody appealed and even the crowd were surprised it was given. If you look at our disallowed goal and their penalty, we could easily have won it with a different referee. The Albion fans were great and did a tremendous job trying to lift the team.

Andy Williams (Brighton) - The referee was terrible again but we are not helping ourselves. I dont think it is any coincidence that our poor results recently have coincided with us starting to play the long-ball game far too much. We are going down because we give the ball away too much and it keeps coming back.

Dave Schildkamp (Withdean) - It's obvious Adam Virgo is a defender playing up front but hes a wholehearted player and he took his goal well. I think our new goalie (Alan Blayney) looks a very good acquisition. Brighton being Brighton, whos to say we won't get a point at Preston and three points against Leicester?

Ruth Sexton (Coventry fan) - This was a massive result because a defeat would have been a real hammer blow for us. The penalty decision was a bit of a mystery and to be honest no one really had a clue what is was for. The result could have gone either way but we edged it by battering them in the last 20 minutes.