Yates said: "Tottenham are a great team, they started really sharp and deserved to go 1-0 up. We dug deep and got back into it. They punished us with two great finishes.
"The teams at the top starve you of the ball and they play around you. We have to just take the positives and move swiftly on."
On the red card appeal against James Maddison, he added: "James Maddison is a good player, I know he makes them tick. It's my job to disrupt the momentum. A few decisions probably didn't go our way but we've seen the inconsistency in the Premier League this season.
"We've got a massive home game coming up and our last performance at home was really good. It was huge last year and we need the fans to give us the extra boost.
"We want to try and get as many points as quickly as possibly."