The Ecuador left-back went on at half-time to try and help rescue a point against Spurs who were leading 2-0 before Fabian Hurzeler’s Brighton side mounted an amazing comeback to make it 3-2.
Potter spoke on the defender who he says was a true match for the Spurs attack: “He brings a physicality. He can match Tottenham’s physicality.
“In the first half, you found often the full-back was having problems 2v1, overloading. I think he just gets on the front foot.
“He is able to match their intensity and then he has got that left foot.
“A couple of times the goals have come from sliding passes down to Mitoma. All of a sudden Mitoma can now move inside. He can now threaten the back line of Tottenham’s defence. So I thought he made a good impact.”
The ex-Brighton boss says the side were driven by the previous week’s 4-2 defeat at Chelsea which would have had a mental effect on the side going into the game.
“Credit to Brighton. They really worked hard and did well at half-time. You could see the first half was probably affected by the previous match against Chelsea.
“At the start of the game they were attacked in behind a few times. So psychologically probably the players there at half-time are thinking it’s not looking so good.
“The second goal, as soon as you play through the team and how the goalkeeper let the ball in, it felt like a weak goal.
“At half-time they really made a difference in terms of, ‘Let’s make this about emotion, let’s get some intensity into our game’ and they imposed themselves on the game really well in the second half.”