The Dane captained Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend and helped them earn a 2-2 draw with Barcelona

Christian Eriksen was pleased to see Spurs fight back from two goals down to draw with Barcelona in the International Champions Cup last weekend, but warned they can’t afford to start the Premier League season so slowly.

Tottenham Hotspur trailed 2-0 by the 29th minute after goals from Barca duo Munir El Haddadi and Arthur.

Mauricio Pochettino saw his inexperienced team respond through Heung-min Son and Georges-Kevin Nkodou before they lost 5-3 on penalties.

While there were positives to take from the friendly, Eriksen warned the squad must be better for the August 11 opener away to Newcastle United.

He told SpursTV: “We don’t want to start in the Premier League two goals down after the first half, so of course that’s something we need to improve, but showing the mentality we know we have, we will always try to come back.

“We did that and of course they played with a very young team compared to normal, but again any game is one you want to win. We didn’t win, but at least we gave it a good shot in the second half.”

It was an inexperienced Barcelona side, but Spurs were all missing a number of key men due to their success at the World Cup.

Nine members of Tottenham’s first-team squad are still on their holidays and various others have picked up injuries.

With Hugo Lloris and Harry Kane not in the United States and Michel Vorm starting on the bench, Eriksen captained the side against Barcelona.

After a slow first half, where the Dane almost netted for Spurs, the Lilywhites eventually got back into the game.

Eriksen was involved in most of their good play and was proud of the way the young team fought to eventually level the scores.

He added: “It was a tough game and we didn’t start as well as we wanted, but of course we dug in and we came back.

“At the end I think 2-2 was a fair result. The first half we could have been even worst, but second half we played better and a bit more direct and that helped us.”