Brighton boss Fabian Hürzeler admitted his side were not at their best after they fired blanks in a goalless Conference League draw at Czech minnows Jablonec.
The Premier League’s top scorers, with 23 goals from their first seven matches, misfired badly in the foothills of the Jizera Mountains in northern Czechia.
Jablonec coach Lubos Kozel had said his side would need a “miracle” to get anything from the match.
It turned out they only needed a below-par display from the favourites to lift the trophy to take a point, and in fact they could have had all three.
“We didn’t play at our highest level,” Hürzeler told broadcasters. “I think Jablonec defended well, but overall of course it’s not the result we wanted. But we have to keep going.
“If you play 0-0 then you didn’t create enough, so that’s definitely something where we have to get better.
“We have to understand what it means to play in this cup. We have to understand that we have to be brilliant at the basics, and we weren’t good at the basics today.
“A little bit (of) precision in the last action was missing and that’s something we have to improve.”
Brighton struggled to make any clear-cut chances, while Jablonec were looking the likelier to score towards the end.
Antonin Rusek almost capitalized on a mistake by Joao Costinha before Bart Verbruggen had to make a spectacular fingertip save to prevent Jiri Slama’s drive from hitting the top corner.
Georginio Rutter, who scored twice in Brighton’s opening 4-0 victory over Kauno Zalgiris, had a chance to win it in stoppage time but his snapshot was beaten away by Jan Hanus.
Hurzeler, in his 100th match in charge, made eight changes from the memorable 5-0 win over Crystal Palace with only Verbruggen, Olivier Boscagli and the omnipresent Pascal Gross keeping their places.
“Of course the longer the game went the more space they had for making transitions,” he added. “We were trying to push hard for scoring the goal.
“Then of course they also had the spaces where they can make counter-movements and they were also quite effective and in certain moments we were lucky.”
Next up the Seagulls face a huge domestic match against Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday.
“Of course we always learn,” said Hurzeler. “And I think it’s important to take things away from this game and try to improve it in the next game.”