Thomas Frank praises Tottenham mentality after Brighton fightback

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.”