Albion played second fiddle to the Mo Salah circus and a Hugo Ekitike double.
But they will reflect that they had a huge part in their own downfall in a 2-0 defeat at Liverpool.
Salah went on as substitute and both forced and took the corner from which Ekitike rose unmarked to head his second goal of the game on the hour.
Albion’s regrets will come over what happened in the minutes before that.
And in the less than a minute it took Ekitike to open the scoring.
The Seagulls had gone ahead on each of their previous three Anfield trips but taken just one point.
Holding on to a lead was not the challenge this time as Liverpool scored after 46 seconds. And it was a mess from their point of view.
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Yankuba Minteh cleared from near the corner flag but sent the ball looping infield, almost like a miscued cross, and Joe Gomez beat a lightweight Diego Gomez challenge to head forward into the Albion box.
Jan Paul van Hecke had been attracted wide by a quick throw-in and, with him still coming back into the centre, there was a huge gap between the Albion centre-backs.
Ekitike exploited it and thumped a shot high past Bart Verbruggen.
Albion’s football was attractive at times – but toothless too.
And two near things just before the second goal cost them dear.
Diego Gomez, denied in the first half by Alisson after being threaded through by Minteh, should have equalised early in the second period.
Instead, he hit the outside of the post from a delicious ball slid across goal by Mats Wieffer.
Then Brajan Gruda, who was involved in that move, angled a shot agonisingly wide of the far post after cleverly making room for himself.
There were a few more near things after the second goal, one of them engineered but then flicked across the face of goal by the returning Kaoru Mitoma.
And there was a fabulous welcome back to Anfield for late substitute James Milner from home fans.
Salah, whose clunky performance underlined why he has not been starting games, blazed a great chance over the bar and messed up a counter-attack, both in added time, before going on a solo semi-lap of applause.
The centre of attention for Albion will be that ridiculous early goal and chances which got away.
Albion: Verbruggen; Wieffer, van Hecke, Dunk, Kadioglu; Baleba (Ayari 64), Hinshelwood (Welbeck 81); Minteh, Gruda (Mitoma 64), Gomez (Milner 87); Rutter (Kostoulas 81). Subs not used: Steele, Boscagli, De Cuyper, Veltman.
