Fulham versus Brighton & Hove Albion Preview: Three questions with Brighton But Only At Home

Cottagers Confidential: Brighton have had a 28 goal swing in GD, earned 28 more points, and jumped 17 places in the standings from last year. You've still got a good chance of automatic promotion and barring an epic meltdown, should at least make the playoffs. Was this expected in anyway? What's the secret to the turn around?

Brighton But Only At Home: I don't think anyone expected it to this degree. Higher mid table with a shot at the playoffs if it went well was my expectation, but I knew we wouldn't struggle the way we did last season. The reasons for that are fairly much Chris Hughton and Beram Kayal. We've brought in a lot of other good players too but everything goes through our energetic two man central midfield and the team spirit, pace and togetherness has all come from Chris. We're now at the point where if we win all our remaining games we'll go up since Boro and Burnley have to play each other. I'd have laughed you out of the pub if you'd told me that would be where we were in April when the season began.

CC: Steve Sidwell, Bobby Zamora, and David Stockdale. That's a lot of ex-Fulham you can roll out. Which of those players has meant the most to the team?

BBOAH: Zamora means most to the fans - he's a God down here - but Stockdale is the most important to the team. He's one of three candidates for player of the season, along with Bruno and Kayal and has saved us an untold number of points considering we normally win by only one goal. He's the most improved as well having shed some pounds in the summer and he's a real character and a lovely bloke.

CC: Looking through your roster, I don't see any player names (besides the ones with Fulham ties) that jump out at me. Who's been your best player this year? Who should Fulham work to stop?

BBOAH: Continuing the theme it's been Kayal consistently all season but he's only been able to do it because Dale Stephens has also been epic alongside him. Their partnership has been incredible and they've got through a heck of a lot of work together. However, where you'll really need to stop us is on the wings. Murphy, Knockaert and Lua Lua can all take three or four players to stop them at times and if you get sucked in that's where the space appears. This is exactly how we got our winner against Forest. That Dunk's useful too, glad we kept him!

CC: Predicted Lineup and score?

BBOAH: Score - we have to win and we only ever win by one goal. You guys score a few so I'm going for a bold 3-2 to us.

Team - Stockdale; Bruno, Dunk, Goldson, Rosenior; Knockaert, Kayal, Stephens, Murphy; Skalk; Hemed.