'Best performance of season' - Spurs showing fighting mentality

For a while at Brighton on Saturday, Tottenham fans must have been fearing that a term used to describe their inconsistency was making its first appearance of the season.

After an impressive start to the campaign and then dominating against the Seagulls, finding themselves 2-0 down after 30 minutes did have the feeling of being very 'Spursy' - after all, it was at the same ground just under a year ago that they went from 2-0 up to lose 3-2.

But - thankfully as far the Tottenham supporters were concerned - it was a feeling that did not last too long.

Thomas Frank's side fought back thanks to goals from Richarlison and a Jan Paul van Hecke own goal to earn a point. They had enough chances to take much more than that as well.

Incredibly, this marked the first time in three years that Tottenham have managed to avoid defeat in an away league game when trailing by two or more goals - a run of 15 losses in such matches - suggesting a possible change in their mentality under Frank.

"I think this is our best performance of the season," the Spurs boss told BBC Match of the Day.

"I actually think that overall, if there should have been a winner, it should have been us.

"So many crosses into the box, near chances, missed opportunities. We were physically strong and mentally strong, and that is so important if you want to achieve something."

After Tottenham dug in to earn a 1-0 win against Villarreal on their return to the Champions League in midweek, Lucas Bergvall praised their "clean-sheet mentality' with that shutout their fourth in their first five games this season.

When the clean sheet opportunity was swiftly wiped out by Brighton on Saturday, the Spurs players showed a different mentality.

This time they never gave up and appeared to have the belief that they could get something from the game, despite their statistically poor ability to recover from two-goal deficits.

"The mentality that we showed, I was so impressed with," added Frank.

"[We showed] the mentality to stay in the game, to keep going, to keep pushing and come back and get a well deserved 2-2."

Tottenham midfielder Joao Palhinha told Sky Sports: "At least what we can take is the mentality that we had fighting for the result."

He added: "This mentality needs to be there always regardless of the result."

Against Brighton, Tottenham had 45 touches of the ball inside the opposition box, compared to just 17 for Brighton.

They also had 11 shots on goal but just three of those were on target.

While Tottenham appear to have improved defensively and mentality wise from last season, making the opposition goalkeeper work appears to be an area they have, for now, regressed in.

"There are a lot of things for this team to keep improving," Palhinha added.

"But these improvements have come week by week."