Shane Duffy expects all three promoted teams to stay up this season.

And he felt Albion took a small step towards achieving that with their point at Newcastle.

The Seagulls became the first team to take a point in the head-to-heads between themselves, Toon and Huddersfield this term.

It was built on a solid clean sheet and might have been crowned by a set-piece goal from himself or fellow defender Lewis Dunk.

They look to add to it at home to Bournemouth today.

Duffy, impressive against opponents who too often fed his strengths, said: “You look at the Newcastle team (on Saturday) and it was basically the Championship team from last year.

“They are well organised and they know each other quite well and that is always a hard thing to break down.

“There are a couple of points in it (between the promoted sides).

“There’s not much between the three teams.

“It’s who gets a bit of luck in front of goal and that is what we need.

“I’m sure all three teams will be all right this year.”

Albion’s tally of eight blanks in 11 awaydays (nine in 12 if the Carabao Cup is included) is a concern.

But they have kept clean sheets in three of their last four games and this was their fourth shut-out on the road, bringing them their eight away points to date.

Given their poor goalscoring record, it is perhaps no surprise they have only taken away points when they have kept a blank sheet.

Duffy said: “We pride ourselves on clean sheets and obviously we need to score a couple more goals, which we are trying to do.

“The foundation of it is if we don’t concede we have more chance of winning.

“We are picking up points away from home now which is a good thing.

“If we win at home on Monday this will be a good point.”

It might take a set-piece to make the breakthrough – as so nearly happened at Newcastle as Duffy headed a perfect Pascal Gross corner narrowly over in the first half.

He said: “I had a couple of chances and it was disappointing for one not to drop.

“But I feel like I’m getting closer.

“There was only ever going to be one goal in it, if there was one, so set-pieces were vital and it just didn’t drop for us.”