Chris Hughton backs wayward Glenn Murray and criticises Brighton’s defending after defeat at Crystal Palace

Glenn Murray had several opportunities to equalise in the second half but his manager refused to lay the blame on the striker

Brighton conceded three goals in a frantic first half (Getty)

Chris Hughton criticised his Brighton players’ defending after they conceded three goals in a helter-skelter first half at Crystal Palace on Saturday, eventually losing the game 3-2 to remain 13th in the Premier League.

Glenn Murray had several opportunities to equalise in the second half but his manager refused to lay the blame on his striker, who scored Brighton’s opener, pinpointing his team’s failure to deal with two set-pieces as their undoing.

“We could have got a point with the chances we had in the second half but we lost it in the first half,” Hughton said. ”We conceded three goals and that’s what hurt us, a mad period in the first half where we concede two goals from corners.

“You work on set plays during the week. We changed it a while back after the West Brom game when we conceded twice, and we haven’t conceded from a corner since then, so that was hugely disappointing.”

The impressive Wilfried Zaha scored two of Palace’s goals, including a headed finish after the sort of run behind the defence which has become something of a trademark in recent weeks, and Hughton was frustrated with his side’s inability to stop the Ivorian winger.

“The third goal, the run that Zaha makes is one which we are very aware of,” he said. ”We can set up a team the best way we can, but the players have to produce, and what we produced in this game wasn’t enough. Their performance was better than ours.”

For Palace this win over their fierce rivals saw them climb to 16th and move four points clear of the bottom three. Roy Hodgson reserved his praise for the Palace goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey, who made several telling stops in what his manager described as a ”very important victory”.

“The first half performance was very commanding so it was disappointing to concede those two goals. They put pressure on us, got it in the box, got men forward. Luckily for us Wayne Hennessey had an outstanding game so when crosses eluded our defenders he was there.

“It keeps us in, with four games to go, a chance of maintaining our Premier League status. We’ve come in after defeats and we’ve said we merited more so it was nice to come in with perhaps our opponents feeling that.”