Albion boss Steve Coppell has urged his players to seize the opportunity to steal a march on their relegation rivals.

The next-to-bottom Seagulls will move out of the relegation zone if they turn the table on its head against Micky Adams' second-placed Leicester at Withdean on Friday.

A first win in seven matches would lift Albion up to fourth-bottom, above Stoke by a point and Grimsby on goal difference.

"I think we have got to look upon that as a huge incentive for us to do well," Coppell said. "Almost every game the odds makers put us way out of the running. The rest of the world aren't expecting a lot from Albion.

"In this game in particular if you look at it on paper then in many ways it's a case of why bother even turning up. That is a great position to be in.

"The massive up side is that we could drag ourselves out of the bottom three. I know the players were pleased to get off the bottom, but I said at the time it didn't mean a great deal to me.

"Getting out of the bottom three is the holy grail as far as I am concerned and we can if we can just get a result against the head."

Albion have to play home matches on Fridays in the run-up to Christmas as part of the agreement allowing them to play at Withdean. On Saturday rock-bottom Sheffield Wednesday face a crucial visit to Grimsby, while Stoke are away to Wimbledon.

"I started my career at Tranmere and they used to play all their home games on a Friday night," Coppell said. "In many ways you get the worst or the best.

"If you win it's brilliant because you are ahead of everyone else. Conversely, if you lose you feel it a little bit more. We've got to make sure we do our stuff and get the right result.

"If you look at the last week and three difficult games against Shefffield Wednesday, Ipswich and Derby, we could quite easily be three points better off which would have taken us out of it anyway.

"It's no good us thinking now, 'Oh blimey, we are playing Leicester.' It's got to be a case of tearing into them and really having a go at them.

"We have got nothing to lose. We are at home and if we are going to fail let's fail trying to win, rather than an attitude to keep the score down and see if we can win it."

Young forward Daniel Marney will not be involved against Leicester. He is joining Southend on a month's loan.

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