"We had 17 shots, but only three on target," said Alan Pardew, "which really tells the story of why we didn't score. We opened their defence up time and again, but were just lacking that killer touch.
"I told the players in the dressing room that it's difficult to be too critical of the way we played, especially in the first-half when I felt that we did more than enough to score.
"Don Hutchison and Marlon Harewood made some good moments for us early on, but you have to hit the target when those clear-cut chances come along, otherwise you'll get punished.
"The game was a bit disrupted in the second-half with the injury to Matty Etherington and then the sending-off, and we're disappointed that we didn't create more chances in the last 10 minutes.
"It's a very bad result, especially when you consider how good our home form has been, and that we were going into the game off the back of a 2-1 win over QPR last weekend."
The Hammers went into this game expecting Brighton to be tough to break down, and Alan Pardew admitted that the Seagulls made it very difficult for his Hammers side to play.
"Brighton game with a specific tactical plan," he said. "They dropped deep, gave us very little room to play and then tried to nick something on set-plays or on the break.
"They defended very well, and even when we did manage to open them up, nothing seemed to drop for us today.
"Some of the lads were disappointed with the goal. Calum Davenport said that he was pushed in the penalty area before it went in, but it was a bad goal to concede after we gave away a needless free-kick so close to our penalty-area."
Although not having studied a video of the incident, Alan also felt the referee's decision to send off Hayden Mullins after he clashed with Brighton forward Adam Virgo was harsh.
"Hayden had a right to be upset with the tackle, which was very poor," admitted Alan. "Their player has then reacted towards Hayden and I think probably deserved to go. Hayden didn't seem to react that much, but obviously he shouldn't have reacted at all, and I'll have to study a video of what happened."
The Hammers lost winger Matty Etherington midway through the second-half after a heavy collision with Brighton goalkeeper Michel Kuipers, a loss that Alan Pardew's side certainly felt as they pressed for an equaliser.
"Matty took a bad knock on the knee," said Alan, "and we'll have to assess it next week before we know how he'll be. His injury caused us a bit of a problem, because we didn't have another left-sided player on the bench, so we tried to play a striker in behind the front two to see if we could make something happen, but it wasn't to be.
"It was a really frustrating day, and we'll need to take our chances a lot better against Millwall next week."