Tariq Lamptey has not played for Brighton since December due to injuries; the 20-year-old has made 19 appearances since joining from Chelsea in January 2020; Lamptey recently signed a new contract until 2025
Thursday 4 March 2021 15:44, UK
Brighton defender Tariq Lamptey has suffered another injury setback and will miss Saturday's Premier League game against Leicester.
The full-back has not played since December due to a hamstring problem but was expected to be in contention for this weekend.
However, Seagulls manager Graham Potter said: "Tariq won't be fit, he had a little setback this week and we need to get to the bottom of that.
"It's a problem with his hamstring. He's seeing a specialist and he's not available for the weekend."
The news comes as a major blow to Brighton in their battle against relegation.
The Seagulls were 10 points clear of the drop zone last month following wins over Tottenham and Liverpool but are now only three points above the relegation places after consecutive defeats to Crystal Palace and West Brom.
"The league table is there. That's always going to be the case when opposition teams do stuff but you have to solve the problems yourself, and get the points yourself," said Potter.
"We've got the ability to do that, we believe we can do that, now we have to do it. We have to score one goal more than the opposition.
"No matter how well you play the game's about scoring and we haven't done that well enough in the last two or three games."
Potter has challenged his side to bounce back from their frustrating 1-0 defeat at West Brom, in which they missed two penalties and had Lewis Dunk's free-kick controversially ruled out by referee Lee Mason.
"It is what it is. There's nothing we can do now, it's one of those things that happens," added Potter.
"It's an unfortunate one and it didn't look the best as it was folding out but we can't do anything about it now, we move on.
"We've had three frustrating games. Against Aston Villa we drew 0-0 but we felt we could have won, then Palace and then West Brom.
"Results-wise it's been disappointing but performance-wise there are a lot of positives. The boys are in good spirits and in a good place."
