Albion boss Gus Poyet fears The Amex pitch may have contributed to a crippling injury crisis.

The Seagulls are investigating the reasons behind the crop of casualties derailing their Championship campaign.

Several of the players signed by Poyet since last season, when Albion were almost injury-free at Withdean, have been plagued by problems.

Will Buckley (hamstring), former Watford team-mate Will Hoskins (thigh) and Spanish playmaker Vicente (thigh) have been restricted to a total of just four league starts and remain doubts for Sunday’s visit by Barnsley.

Dutch striker Roland Bergkamp has been ruled out for weeks by hamstring trouble, while on-loan West Brom defender Gonzalo Jara Reyes (knee) pulled out in the warm-up at Watford on Tuesday after the same thing happened to Buckley at Birmingham last Saturday.

Poyet revealed to The Argus: “We have been talking about everything and analysing. It’s not as if we don’t search for answers or reasons. The problem is you can talk about ten different things and we haven’t come up with one answer.

“The pitch is different grass, a different kind of effort, different reaction from the players after the games we have played. Is that a reason?

“I don’t know. What is true is it’s different. The players who have been injured most of the time weren’t here last year, Buckley, Hoskins, Vicente, now Gonzalo Jara.

“Players who haven’t been with us previously are for some reason not really coping with the intensity or whatever it is. Even Bergkamp has been injured for a month and a half.

“Then we have tried to address the intensity of training and whether it is right or not, especially when it is close to the game and people are trying to get into the team and maybe training harder than they should, so we’ve tried to slow it down or make it shorter.

“At the end of the day we have got too many but you are going to get knocks and injuries and you need to cope with that. That’s why you need a squad, 18 players and if you change one or two the team is still performing the same.”

It is not only new players who have been affected. Gary Dicker broke a leg in the last home game against West Ham.

Poyet added: “If Gary Dicker, Vicente and Jara were fit now they would play. For us four or five is a lot. We can make one or two changes and the base of the team is still there.

“You need the rest to step up and take their chances and they are not.”

For a two-page special on Gus Poyet talking about Lewis Dunk's absence from the team see The Argus today.