Albion are relishing the “silver lining” of a return to action.

The Seagulls will resume their Premier League season versus Arsenal at the Amex, possibly on June 20.

But there is still a hefty cost to halting the season for 15 weeks and resuming before empty stands.

Albion deputy chairman and chief executive Paul Barber said players and coaches are all on board for Project Restart.

The club have refunded ticket-holders and a rebate is due to television broadcasters.

Barber said: “It’s obviously a very, very, very tough time financially.

“We would have been projecting to lose money again this year.

“I think going forward and playing out the season behind closed doors is probably going to increase those losses that we were projecting by about 50-60%.

“We’re going to be in a significantly worse financial position than we would have expected - but not as bad a financial position as we could have been in if we couldn’t play at all.

“I think in these difficult times you look for every sort of silver lining, don’t you?

“So as much as the clouds are above us still in terms of finances, you know the silver lining is as far as we can predict at the moment that we will be able to finish the season, which will help us enormously.

“And although the rebate clearly is going to be painful because it’s a budget deficit that we were not anticipating, it could have been worse if we didn’t play at all.”

Albion look set to stage their five remaining home games at the Amex, as they wanted, rather than on neutral territory.

Anticipation towards a resumption has stepped up in the last two days.

Barber said: “I must admit I woke up this morning feeling a lot better about life than we have in the last few weeks.

“Obviously we still need to keep in mind nearly 40,000 people have lost their lives.”