'Enjoy a beer & don't look at the table!' - Fabian Hurzeler's brilliant message to Brighton fans as Seagulls demolish Crystal Palace in five-goal masterclass

The Seagulls dismantled Crystal Palace 5-0 in a ruthless display on Sunday. Brighton blew the visitors away within the opening 10 minutes, quickly establishing a commanding 3-0 advantage. An own goal from Jaydee Canvot started the rout, before Diego Gomez stole the show with a stunning strike from the halfway line just seven minutes into the contest.

Yasin Ayari added a third to cap a frantic opening spell. After the break, Charalampos Kostoulas and Jack Hinshelwood completed the scoring to seal a memorable derby day. The dominant result briefly put Brighton second in the league standings, though Arsenal's 1-0 victory over Nottingham Forest later pushed the south-coast side down to third.

Despite sitting on an impressive 16 points from a possible 21, Hurzeler wants the fanbase to stay grounded and relish the moment. He stressed the importance of switching off and celebrating the derby triumph over their fierce rivals.

"They shouldn't look at the table," Hurzeler said. "They should enjoy the night today without a mobile phone, enjoy a beer or something else and enjoy wearing the Seagulls' colours.

"I don't look at the table at the moment. So of course, positive results, negative results always create judgments, but in the end we need to focus on our performances and that's the only thing we can control and that's how we manage it."

Hurzeler elaborated on his coaching philosophy, noting that Brighton's priority is continuous improvement heading into a busy schedule. "Since I've been here, we always focus on performances no matter if you have a good or a bad run," he explained. "I think the main reason why we focus on performance is because we want to develop players and we want to develop ourselves as a club. And therefore, I think it's not the right moment to watch the table. The right moment is to watch the game back and try to improve and try to recover well because on Thursday, it's the next challenge."

For Crystal Palace, the league standings make for grim reading after collecting just seven points from seven matches. Manager Pierre Sage took full responsibility for the humiliating defeat and the manner of his team's capitulation.

"I don't know what happened today," Sage admitted. "I just want to apologise to the fans because it's not normal to show this face when we are doing this job against this club. We are not at the level we expected. And I'm really sorry for that because I know how important it's for them, but we didn't show up today. That's really important for us too. I think we didn't understand in which context the team was playing."

Brighton face a relentless schedule across multiple competitions in the coming weeks. Their immediate focus turns to Europe, where they take on Czech outfit Jablonec in the Conference League on Thursday.

Following their continental commitments, Hurzeler's side will travel to Anfield next weekend to battle Liverpool. The Seagulls then close out a demanding October with a double-header against table-toppers Manchester City, facing Enzo Maresca's side in both the FA Cup and the Premier League.