Who were the big winners here? Certainly not Tottenham, even if they ended the game bellowing, blustering and battering at the door with nine men. The fact they went down fighting in those circumstances, clawing back into contention after controversially going two goals behind, will buoy up the embattled Thomas Frank but that would be to overlook elements of a performance whose discipline deteriorated to their cost.

It may not have been a moment of lift-off for Liverpool, either, although they did eventually wobble to three points. The scales had tipped in their favour when Xavi Simons, with one of those very modern and exasperating video review red cards, was dismissed in the 33rd minute but they looked blunt until the half-time substitute Alexander Isak sent them on their way. As soon as he had done so, the striker departed with a nasty-looking injury. The legacy could be costly regardless of the fact that, almost undetected, Arne Slot’s side have clawed themselves back up to fifth, at least until Manchester United visit Aston Villa on Sunday.

The touchpaper on what had been a circumspect affair, initially light years from the 6-3 rampage Liverpool delivered a year ago to the weekend, was set ablaze when Simons caught Virgil van Dijk after the ball had long gone. In one sense the flashpoint had been coming: Simons had been haring around off the ball, pleasing the crowd with one sliding intervention near his own corner flag. In another it felt rather overblown, the offence not seeming sufficient to rob the evening of its standard proportions.

Van Dijk had passed the ball backwards when Simons, failing to put the brakes on when pressing, raked his studs down the defender’s lower left leg. He had been a little off balance when contact was made. The referee, John Brooks, showed a yellow card and on real-time viewing that seemed a reasonable end to the matter.

But Simons was clearly in trouble once the video assistant referee called for a review, events running their inevitable course after the slow-motion replays invited a different conclusion. Presented at a fraction of the speed his challenge did look dangerous; ultimately, though, it reeked of the kind of dismissal that rarely occurred before micromanagement by technology was railroaded through to become an integral part of football. Simons should have cooled the jets but he had been rash rather than malicious.

There was no suggestion Van Dijk would need replacing and indeed it was he, in a late example of Liverpool’s enduring skittishness, who would air kick and allow the substitute Richarlison to drill Spurs back into the game. By then it seemed to have been won, the visitors drawing blood from their two moments of genuine threat.

Liverpool had not exceeded room temperature in the first half so it was little surprise Isak was called to enhance their threat even if the player he replaced, Conor Bradley, was injured. With his fourth touch, Isak clipped in his second Premier League goal of the campaign after Dominik Szoboszlai and Florian Wirtz had made the most of a sloppy pass-out from Romero. It was Wirtz’s first top-flight assist in England but the good news ended there.

Isak was taken out by a scissor-like challenge by Micky van de Ven as he scored, the tackle worse than anything Simons had produced but perhaps diminished by the move’s outcome, and had to be helped from the field after lengthy treatment. The problem appeared to be with his ankle and Slot will hope his prize asset, finally getting up to speed, is not sidelined for long.

Spurs’ main threat with 11 men had come through Randal Kolo Muani, who could not get enough power on a free header soon before Simons departed. He gamely ploughed a lone furrow when they had 10 and almost equalised when, after a show of strength and speed, his angled shot snicked off Milos Kerkez and dropped down on to the bar. It was the first deflection that would decide the night’s course.

The second followed quickly. Jeremie Frimpong, who had replaced Isak for his own return from injury, twisted Djed Spence inside out before delivering a cross that clipped the left-back on its way. Hugo Ekitiké, hanging in the air while taking what seemed an illegal liftoff atop Romero, met the ball with a looping header and Spurs had further cause to rage.

They finished with five yellow cards including the two shown to Romero, the second shown three minutes into an epic period of added time after he kicked out at Ibrahima Konaté. Spurs may have been fuelled by righteous anger but the last thing Frank needs is to lose both Simons and his captain. They kept balls flashing across the Liverpool box until the last despite such depleted numbers, Wilson Odobert requiring Alisson to claw one away at the very end.

Liverpool clung on, their game management a mess but a six-game unbeaten run suggesting the darkest hour has passed. This, though, had hardly been an occasion to draw firm conclusions about anyone.