The Brighton & Hove Albion squad and staff had a day off from training in the build-up to Sunday’s encounter with Aston Villa.

They went go-karting and clay pigeon shooting, a team-bonding exercise designed to rediscover the sense of unity that has underpinned the successes under Roberto De Zerbi.

One criticism levelled against the Italian during a dreadful run for Brighton & Hove Albion has been the absence of a Plan B. On Sunday, the head coach fashioned a Plan B and a Plan C to end a six-game winless run and a five-game streak in which no Brighton player scored a goal.

As well as the pre-matchday team outing, De Zerbi also made a tactical change to deal with Villa’s pacey front line, spearheaded by Ollie Watkins.

Brighton usually go man-for-man at the back, but Billy Gilmour sat deeper in central midfield as protection, a role Moises Caicedo performed before his move last summer to Chelsea.

An experienced back four, including the recalled Joel Veltman — incidentally, the go-karting and clay pigeon shooting champion — and Adam Webster, making his first start for two months, restricted Villa to scraps. They registered a meagre expected goals figure (xG) of 0.06 — illustrating how they hardly made any chances — while Brighton’s was 2.69.

The margin of victory could have been more convincing but it was left to Joao Pedro, who registered his 20th goal of the season, a header from the rebound after his 87th-minute penalty for a foul by Ezri Konsa on the lively Simon Adingra had been saved by Robin Olsen.

Joao Pedro scored the rebound after his penalty was saved (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

The Brazilian’s first failure from the spot in 11 attempts this season was preceded by Pascal Gross having a goal disallowed by the video assistant referee (VAR), a tight offside call after the German tucked in a cross from Igor at the near post.

Gross immediately looked across to the assistant. The flag did not go up, but the VAR review by Michael Oliver showed that Gross’s right knee was a fraction ahead of Matty Cash’s right foot when Igor delivered the cross.

The damage has already been done to Brighton’s hopes of reaching Europe for a second season in succession — either the Europa League or the Europa Conference League — by the slump in form that had dropped them to 13th in the table, their lowest position of the season.

They are back up to 11th, in sight of a top-half finish. The club want to establish themselves as regular top-10 material, an ambition that falls short of De Zerbi’s expectations after finishing sixth last season to qualify for the Europa League.

He wanted to reach the semi-finals of the Europa League and the FA Cup (they went out in the last 16 of both). He also wanted to be in the hunt for Europe via a high league finish right to the end.

That ship sailed during a horrible downturn in which question marks have been raised about De Zerbi’s future amid links with other jobs and some ambiguous remarks in press conferences, interpreted as criticism of owner-chairman Tony Bloom.

Talks have started with Bloom about the plans for next season, in particular the scale of squad strengthening, and they will continue soon. The future is still unclear, but the present looks perkier after a performance against Villa that, although still well short of peak Brighton under De Zerbi in terms of silky build-up play and fluency, was at least a vast improvement on the abject 3-0 loss at Bournemouth a week earlier.

De Zerbi stated after that defeat that the players lacked motivation after seeing the European dream part two slip away. The 6-1 drubbing at Villa Park in September formed part of his team talk. The three changes he made to the starting line-up on Sunday were indicative of pragmatism in the quest for a much-needed result.

That number of alterations is conservative by De Zerbi’s standards. There have often been six, seven or more in a vain attempt to cope with the quick turnarounds after Europa League fixtures, exacerbated by a debilitating list of injuries to key players throughout the campaign.

Bringing back in the experience of 33-year-old Danny Welbeck to lead the attack, Veltman, 32, and Webster, 29, meant there was a more solid look to the line-up than at Bournemouth where, three days after a 4-0 home defeat by Manchester City, De Zerbi handed full league debuts to 19-year-old Irish centre-forward Mark O’Mahony and 21-year-old Odel Offiah at right-back.

Gilmour and Welbeck before the win over Villa (Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

It was asking a lot. Welbeck replaced O’Mahony at half-time, while Offiah was eventually substituted in the second half after a difficult afternoon marking Justin Kluivert.

De Zerbi also left out 19-year-old January signing Valentin Barco against Villa. The Argentinian left-back prospect is still finding his feet four appearances into his Premier League career.

One result is not an instant cure for the recent shortcomings. Villa’s visit was favourably timed in the middle of their Europa Conference League semi-final against Olympiacos — the second leg is in Greece on Thursday following last Thursday’s surprise 4-2 defeat at home.

It does, however, leave De Zerbi’s side in better heart, a point behind Bournemouth and two adrift of West Ham, with a game in hand of both and a better goal difference for a testing finale starting away to Newcastle, followed by home games against Chelsea and Manchester United.

(Top photo: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)