Seagulls hold firm as Murray given

Brighton & Hove Albion striker Glenn Murray has been discharged from hospital after being knocked unconscious during his team’s Premier League victory at Newcastle United. Murray underwent extensive treatment on the pitch at St James’ Park after a clash of heads with defender Federico Fernandez, with worried team-mates immediately signalling medics to come to his aid. However, Seagulls manager Chris Hughton revealed that the Cumbria-born player had been released from hospital after checks. Hughton said: “He’s okay. He’s been discharged from hospital. “As most saw, he was out and so what will happen is now, of course, we will do the appropriate things. “But he’s had everything that he’s needed to have, the correct scans and so on, and everything is fine, so it will just be a question now of recovering, but he’ll be sore for a while. “From where we are, we had no idea. We knew what had happened, but we had no idea of any other details. But when you see the players as distressed as they were, then it makes you even a little bit more concerned.” Magpies manager Rafael Benitez saw his side’s winless start to the Premier League season extend to nine games, a fate they last suffered in 1898 when they went 10 without a victory. Five successive home defeats have done little to ease the anxiety around a club, which has seemingly staggered from one crisis to another throughout its recent history. But asked if he remains confident he can drag them out of an alarming tailspin, the Spaniard replied: “Yes”. Asked further if the current situation is the toughest he has faced as a manager, he added: “Yes, at the moment, yes. I have had a lot of situations, but at the moment, obviously it’s a difficult task.” Beram Kayal’s first-half

guilty of an early miss that may have changed the face the of the game. Benitez said: “Today’s game, with the chances we created, we could have beaten Brighton. We didn’t. “We didn’t create enough, and we didn’t create enough clear-cut chances.” On the other hand, Hughton was delighted with a priceless away win. He said: “It’s a big victory for us that we have had to earn. We were up against probably more shots than we would be in a normal game, and that’s a side desperate to get a result. “It’s the type of victory that you have to work really hard to get.” strike was enough to claim the points for Brighton, who last won away from home in the top flight against Swansea on November 4 last year. There was an element of fortune about it, as Jose Izquierdo’s shot clipped both defender Paul Dummett and the midfielder on its way past goalkeeper Martin Dubravka, although there was no luck about the way the Seagulls defended as Newcastle sought a way back into the game. The defeat was all the harder to take for manager Benitez as he saw his team create more than enough chances to take at least a point, but fail to take any of them, with Ayoze Perez