Fit-again Glenn Murray and Jim McNulty are on the verge of first team recalls.

The pair will help Albion launch their Johnstone’s Paint Trophy campaign at Leyton Orient next Tuesday, unless they have played significant minutes before then.

Murray, back from hernia surgery, and McNulty, who has had a kidney removed and also suffered an ankle problem, helped the reserves draw at Gillingham on Tuesday.

Both could feature when MK Dons head to Withdean on Saturday aiming to avoid a third defeat in eight days.

Seagulls boss Russell Slade saaid: “If they don’t get any football at the weekend, or if they get very little, I have targeted them both to start next Tuesday.

“That’s the plan although when players have been off for such a long period of time, particularly in the case of Jim who had a very unusual injury, you have to take each day at a time.”

Murray has started just once under Slade’s management but was part of the squad who faced Bristol Rovers last Saturday.

McNulty has been out of first-team action since the week before Slade joined the club in March.

Albion must do without suspended Adam Virgo againt the Dons after his red card at Rovers.

Slade could opt to keep faith with Jake Wright, who had a tough second half at Bristol, at left-back.

Wright did not play for the reserves and looks favourite to start ahead of McNulty, whose former Macclesfield manager Paul Ince will come south desperate for a win.

Ince was sent to the stand as Dons were sunk by two super finishes at Oldham on Tuesday, three days after their last-gasp defeat to Leeds.

Those results represent the first time MK have had suffered back-to-back league reverses since January 2008.

Having gone down down to Barnet and Wrexham back then, they completed a hat-trick of defeats by losing to a Rochdale side playing their first game after selling Murray to the Seagulls.

Slade, who saw the Boundary Park tussle, warned: “There could be a bit of backlash.

“It’s not like them to lose two on the bounce. They looked very good going forward and we will have to be resilient at times.”