If you can't beat them, why not join them?

Having been pipped to promotion last season by Middlesbrough by two goals, the focus on Albion just falling short has been on attack rather than defence.

Chances missed to turn draws into wins, rather than clean sheets relinquished costing an extra point or two.

Bolstering the defensive ranks towards the end of the transfer window with the signings of Shane Duffy and Sebastien Pocognoli could just make all the difference.

It could see Chris Hughton's Albion emulate Middlesbrough's route to the Premier League.

The Seagulls, lest we forget, were the joint highest scorers in the Championship last season with 72 goals, the same tally as champions Burnley and next opponents Brentford.

 

Room for improvement. Of course, there always is.

Hughton's reputation for producing teams that are resilient and hard to beat was not undermined at the other end of the pitch.

The Argus: Albion were beaten only twice away. The 42 goals they conceded gave them the fourth-best defensive record in the division.

And yet it was the three sides promoted who had considerably superior defensive stats. Boro let in only 31 goals, Burnley and Hull 35 apiece.

Boro did not need a prolific goalscorer to go up. David Nugent managed eight, Gaston Ramirez seven, Albert Adomah and January signing Jordan Rhodes six, Christian Stuani five.

The two goals difference between them and Albion was not the nine fewer they scored but the 11 fewer they leaked.

Albion were hit by injury problems throughout the defence last season.

At centre-half, Gordon Greer and Uwe Huenemeier suffered significant absences at different times.

In the early stages this season, Bruno has shifted into the middle to solve a crisis.

The situation at the heart of the defence looks a lot brighter now.

Duffy and Lewis Dunk promise to be a formidable partnership. Goldson and Huenemeier are on the way back from respective injury troubles spanning two and eight months.

In the full-back positions, the versatile Liam Rosenior and Gaetan Bong both missed chunks of last season.

Rosenior is currently sidelined by ankle damage sustained in the closing stages of the draw at Reading, Bong has not quite looked the same player since thigh surgery.

Hence the capture of Pocognoli, a player with a point to prove. The 29-year-old Belgian international of Italian origin has been frozen out of the first team picture at West Brom under Tony Pulis.

He made only a handful of appearances last season in the FA Cup, League Cup and one as a second half substitute in the Premier League against Manchester United.

He has an opportunity to get his career back on track by pressing Bong and, perhaps, reigniting his international career now that Roberto Martinez has taken charge of Belgium.

Pocognoli represented his country from under-16 through to under-21 level and at the 2008 Olympics. He has 13 senior caps but his hopes of being involved in the Euro finals in France in the summer were wrecked by lack of game time. That could be about to change.

If only Hughton was 30 years younger. Albion could have depended on him in a position which has been a problem season after season in the Amex era.

Pocognoli is the latest in a long line of loan acquisitions at left-back. Wayne Bridge stayed for a season, likewise Stephen Ward before Burnley hijacked a permanent deal.

Then it was Joe Bennett. Bong at last became a permanent solution, all too swiftly interrupted by an injury which prompted Liam Ridgewell's short-term arrival from the States.

Once Rosenior is restored to fitness, Albion will look as solid in the full-back positions as they do in the middle of the back four, with David Stockdale behind and pressed by Niki Maenpaa.

The case for the defence playing a dominant role in reaching the Premier League, after three clean sheets out of five already with a patched-up version, is compelling.