Gus Poyet has set his new-look Albion team a minimum target of a top ten finish in League One this season.

The Seagulls open their campaign at Poyet’s former club Swindon today with the Uruguayan unsure what to make of bookmakers rating his side as fifth favourites.

He said: “Sometimes the expectations are not only on the players or the manager or how you have done in the last few years.

“They just try to put everything into consideration, how much money you have spent, which players you have got.

“I suppose people are even putting in the stadium. Maybe they don’t know we are not going to play there for another year!

“We have got no problem accepting we should be one of the top teams. Does that mean fifth, seventh or eighth? I don’t know, but we need to change the last two years.

“In the last two years people have been promising too much and fighting against relegation both times.

“We need to forget about that and become, at minimum, a top ten team with options to get up. There are teams that look a little bit stronger, but that’s on paper. When you are eleven v eleven you can be better than anyone, so we are going to try to be the best team in the division.”

Poyet is equally uncertain what to expect of Swindon, where he spent a spell as assistant manager to Dennis Wise.

Their team is also considerably different to the one which reached the play-off final last season, with suspended Albion skipper Gordon Greer among the departures.

Poyet said: “They have definitely lost two key players, the captain (Greer) and top striker (Billy Paynter).

“Can they replace them? That is going to be the big question. If they do then they have got a chance to do the same.

“If they cannot replace them then, in terms not only of performances but in terms of presence and quality, then it is going to be totally different.

“I suppose Danny Wilson knows that and he has been working on that. He has got a striker now who he is very happy with, so let’s see if he is going to be the potential replacement for Paynter.

“At the back they haven’t changed too much, so I don’t know if they are going to get a player or not.

“I think that’s up to them. We don’t have to be too worried about the opposition, because it becomes crazy and too difficult.”