Zamora and Brighton dream on

Brighton & Hove Albion 4 Watford

With 10 minutes to go of this match, which had long died as a contest after Bobby Zamora had scored Brighton's third goal, an enormous cheer erupted around the Withdean Stadium. The Brighton supporters thus told their team, with that celebration, that they could dream of survival for another week as Stoke were losing.

The final whistles here in Sussex and south London confirmed that Brighton were indeed still alive: Albion completed their biggest win of the season, while the Potters had come unstuck against Crystal Palace. The irony is that Brighton and Crystal Palace are sworn enemies, but here, Seagulls fans were singing the praises of Palace.

It all means Albion's hopes of avoiding relegation will now last until next Sunday, when they play away at the bottom club Grimsby. Again Steve Coppell's men have to win, while hoping Stoke lose at home to Reading. That would leave both teams level on points and with Brighton's goal difference the better of the two, that would condemn Stoke to the drop.

Since Brighton only picked up four points from their first 14 games, Brighton have been like dead men walking in the bottom three of the First Division. However Coppell, who replaced the man who started the season in charge, Martin Hinshelwood, has done an impressive job on limited resources to give the Seagulls even a chance of staying up.

Not that Coppell is counting his chickens yet. He knows the Reading manager, Alan Pardew, well from their days together at Palace more than 10 years ago, but he said he will not be contacting Pardew to encourage the Royals. Coppell said: "Asking people to do you a favour never works. I didn't ring up Steve Kember [Palace's current interim manager] to do me a favour this week." However, Coppell added: "The cheer when Palace scored got the hairs up on the back of my neck. The early goal for us made the difference as well. It calmed everyone down."

That crucial first goal came after almost a quarter of an hour when Dean Blackwell met a Kerry Mayo cross and powered his header past Alec Chamberlain. The second came just before the half-hour when Watford failed to clear a long throw-in and Paul Kitson scored from two yards out.

Zamora, the club's most valuable asset, then scored his 14th goal of the season when he headed home from Nathan Jones' cross and Charlie Oatway tapped in the fourth in injury time to keep the Seagulls flying.

Brighton & Hove Albion 4 Watford 0
Blackwell 13, Kitson 27, Zamora 72, Oatway 90

Half-time 2-0 Attendance: 6,841