Neal Maupay wants Albion to maintain the same fighting spirit they showed in the defeat to Southampton.

The 2-0 loss to Saints at the Amex ruined the striker’s full Premier League debut for the Seagulls.

The Frenchman was one of two changes made by Seagulls head coach Graham Potter from the draw with West Ham as he and Florin Andone started ahead of Glenn Murray and Pascal Gross.

It was a milestone moment but a defeat took the shine off it and the £16 million summer buy put the focus on the team for the way they responded to setbacks, including the loss of fellow frontman Andone to a red card after just 30 minutes.

Maupay told The Argus: “I am very happy to have my first start for the club but it is always the team first, and we lost, so I am not really happy.

“I want to keep the mindset we all had and we need to keep fighting and keep going like we did today if we want to be good.”

Albion had a Lewis Dunk effort ruled out for offside before going behind and caused the visitors problems even when down a man before being killed off in stoppage time when Nathan Redmond slid in a second.

Maupay said: “Obviously we are disappointed but I thought the team spirit was good and unfortunately it wasn’t enough.

“To play ten against 11 for an hour is not easy but we gave everything and unfortunately we didn’t get something from the game.”

He added: “Even though we did play well, we were still not happy because we wanted something and we truly believed we could get a point at least.

“Like I said, the team spirit was good but we can’t be happy with a defeat so we will work harder to get something in the next game.”

Andone’s red was a blow but Maupay was philosophical.

He said: “I need to review it but it is football sometimes.

“There are fouls, and there are yellow or red cards, but I think they checked it with VAR and we just had to move on and we did pretty well.

“We had chances to score after the red card but we did not do it.”