Brighton sent Newcastle United to the bottom of the table with a 1-0 win at St James' Park.

Beram Kayal scored the only goal of the game for Brighton to grab a rare win away from home.

Rafa Benitez had to face the music after the game in the Press conference , he said: “I think everybody can see that the team was trying everything.

“Sometimes when we talk about games that you cannot win because the other team is too strong and you have to defend, today was the opposite.

“We were in control, we had 27 attempts, corners, free-kicks and they had a corner – but it wasn't a corner – and then they scored there.

“Just the last five minutes, they had some counter-attacks when we were giving the ball away a little bit with the anxiety in the last minutes, but too many things, too much control and obviously we have to be more clinical and more precise in the final third."

Benitez was at a loss to explain United's stuttering form.

He added: “Everybody is a little bit down now because...it's simple: we have lost a game that I think we deserved to win or at least to get something.

“It's difficult to explain when you have this kind of situation.

“The way that we attacked and we controlled the game and we could not even score one goal when we had the chances we had."