Dean Hammond today insisted Albion have the heart for a New Year's Day battle.

The Seagulls have lost three of their last four and seen three key players leave in the final days of 2007.

Hammond, though, insists the spirit shown in Saturday's defeat at Yeovil can help them halt the slide, starting with what now looks a must-win home clash with Bournemouth on Tuesday.

The skipper, himself out of contract at the end of the season, emerged from defeat at Huish Park and said: "I think the boys showed tremendous spirit.

"We did ourselves and the club proud. Unfortunately we lost but we will bounce back on Tuesday.

"We're playing a home game, we haven't played one for a while and we enjoy playing at home.The away fans have been fantastic. I think they have enjoyed watching us.

"The Millwall game wasn't the best bBut at Yeovil we showed a lot of spirit and showed we are proud to play for this club."

Bas Savage runs out of contract at Albion tomorrow while Matt Richards and George O'Callaghan are back at Ipswich.

Hammond admitted the departures of Savage and O'Callaghan last week, and some very public contract arguments, affected the build-up to the Yeovil game.

He said: "Maybe we wanted to win the game so much we tried to push and pressure things too much rather than play our normal game.

"Don't get me wrong, in patches we played really well.

"Yeovil play a high tempo game. The pitch maybe didn't help our passing game but we created some chances.

"If anyone watches that game and says we didn't deserve a draw then they would be lying."