Brighton defender Jan Paul van Hecke has praised skipper Lewis Dunk.

The Dutchman made his full Premier League bow in the 2-2 draw at Leicester City.

“You can learn a lot from the experienced players here," he told the club's website. “If you're alongside Dunk it's easy to play because he talks to you a lot. It was good for me.

“If you look around, we have a lot of young players. The average age is really low, so that's good for Brighton.

“Now everyone's really hopeful for the rest of the season because we're doing really well under this manager – everyone's excited."

He added, "I think I did well in the first half against Leicester, some good passes between the lines, defending well. The second half was alright but, if I am being critical, for their second goal I could maybe have done a bit better because if I had opened up my body I could have blocked the ball.

“Overall, I think it was good that I got my first game and got a lot of experience from it.

“The Championship is different to the Premier League. It's more up and down, you lose a lot of balls so every detail needs to be right. It was a good learning curve for me."