Wes Brown is urging Sunderland to build upon a stubborn start to the season to ease themselves up the Barclays Premier League table
The Black Cats remained winless this term but recorded their third draw in four outings when they fought back twice to hold Tottenham 2-2 at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.
It was perhaps their least convincing performance of the season to date, but Brown is confident the grit and determination they showed to drag themselves back into a game which looked to be beyond them can serve them well as they prepare for next weekend's trip to promoted Burnley and the home clashes with Swansea and Stoke which follow.
The former Manchester United defender said: "We have got a good bunch of lads here
We know what's expected.
"We have got to try to start winning a couple of games, but if we keep showing the desire that we showed in the last 15, 20 minutes and maybe do that at the beginning of the game - because it started very difficult for us - maybe we can get better results.
"We are looking for our first win in any of the games, and hopefully that will start next week
It's away from home, but if we can show the desire that we showed on Saturday and maybe finish a few more of our chances and stop them at the back, we have got a good chance."
Sunderland had to show desire and a great deal more to emerge from the game with tangible reward.
They fell behind with less than two minutes on the clock when Nacer Chadli followed up after goalkeeper Vito Mannone had beaten away Emmanuel Adebayor's shot, but were back on terms almost immediately as Adam Johnson embarked upon a scything run into the box and finished with aplomb.
However, with Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela proving impossible to shackle and Moussa Dembele prompting, the visitors dominated for long periods and Dembele was unfortunate to see a 38th-minute drive come back off the post with Mannone stranded.
They regained the lead within three minutes of the restart when Eriksen stabbed home from close range, but they failed to build upon it - although Lamela was denied a third goal by the crossbar - and Sunderland responded once again.
Gus Poyet's men were level with eight minutes remaining when substitute Harry Kane inadvertently turned Jordi Gomez's free-kick into his own net, and they might have snatched victory at the death, only for Will Buckley to sky over from Patrick van Aanholt's pull-back.
Brown said: "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.
"But we managed to carry on
You could say they got a little bit tired near the end and we just kept pushing on, and eventually we got something out of probably just the fight
We kept on going and managed to get the own goal."
Poyet was delighted to have come away with a point even if he might have had all three.
He said: "I'm not going to say I expected something from the game because I thought they were better than us, but we nearly nicked it at the end with Buckley's chance.
"That would have been very unfair on them [Spurs], but that's football, that's football in the Barclays Premier League if you are compact and you know your options until the end."
If Poyet was a happy man, opposite number Mauricio Pochettino was understandably less so.
He said: "I am not worried because the most important thing is to create the chances
We have scored two goals away - maybe we had the facility to score more
But we need to be be more solid.
"My responsibility is to analyse the first goal that we conceded because, when you concede the first goal like we conceded it today after you have scored at beginning of the game, we need to be smarter and more aggressive because it was too easy for Sunderland to score."
Source : PA
Source: PA