Sunderland can take encouragement from Spurs display

Tottenham Hotspur's Eric Dier (left) and Sunderland's Connor Wickham battle for the ball .

Sunderland were fortunate to escape with a third draw from four Premier League outings in Saturday’s Stadium of Light clash with Spurs after the Black Cats were outplayed for long periods against the impressive visitors.

Gus Poyet’s side are yet to replicate the kind of form they showed in their remarkable escape from the jaws of relegation last season and remain without a league win to their name.

But neither are Sunderland proving to be a soft touch and centre-half Brown believes that is a trait which cannot be overlooked.

The former Manchester United man said: “At the end of the day, football is all about the score.

“Apart from QPR, we’ve not lost.

“We’re not playing as well as we can, like we were at the end of last season.

“But it’s still early on and hopefully that will come.

“As long as we can keep getting points, that’s the main thing.

“We’ve got a good bunch of lads, who know what is expected.

“We have got to start winning a couple of games, but if we can keep showing the same desire from the last 15-20 minutes against Spurs and do that at the beginning of the game, we can maybe get a few better results.”

Despite instantly cancelling out Nacer Chadli’s second minute opener, Sunderland remained on the back foot, with Spurs twice hitting the woodwork either side of Christian Eriksen’s goal early in the second half.

But with Spurs failing to make the most of their superiority, Sunderland pulled level late on after substitute Jordi Gomez’s free-kick deflected off Harry Kane and into his own net.

“They started very well, although I know we scored straight after,” added Brown.

“But afterwards, they put a lot of pressure on us and it was difficult at times.

“They played very well. They always put pressure on us and made it very difficult for us. They hit the post and the crossbar a couple of times.

“(Emanuele) Adebayor plays up front and then the rest of the players move, which makes it difficult to mark them.

“But we defended quite well and even though they had opportunities, we managed to get back in the game.

“We were happy with a point, but we’ve got to look to next week now to push on and get more points.”