Tom Cairney equalizes but then sees red as Fulham take a point at Tottenham | Premier League

It would be tempting to talk about Tottenham being at least predictable in their unpredictability, that they can only follow a great result with a disappointing one, that they are bound to fail after beating Manchester City 4-0 last weekend and defeating Fulham too home. But actually the story on Sunday was much more about Fulham, how well they played and how puzzling it was that they didn’t take all three points despite being comfortably ahead for most of the game.

What made their performance all the more impressive was that they were without midfielder Andreas Pereira. Marco Silva denied he had been ruled out after giving an interview to Brazilian media in which he appeared to suggest he was keen on a move to Marseille to play under Roberto De Zerbi.

“He will be back to help the team like he has done every week,” Silva said. “I don’t make decisions around interviews. I don’t protect players because of social media. My decisions are based on daily meetings with the players. He wasn’t ready. It was a technical decision of my own.”

That Fulham were not in the lead when Tom Cairney was sent off after 84 minutes was thanks almost entirely to the heroism of Tottenham’s reserve goalkeeper Fraser Forster, who had not played a league game for 18 months and whose differences from the first game were obvious -Choice Guglielmo Vicario, who was missing with a broken ankle, was a major concern before the game.

Only 7% of Vicario’s passes were played into the opposition half this season, by far the lowest in the league, and he had maintained a pass completion rate of 90.8%. Forster, who completed 77.8% of his passes and hit four of his 14 long passes, is a more old-school type of goalkeeper.

But as legitimate as concerns about his ability to play from the back may be, at 36, Forster’s reflexes are still sharp. After a brave early block from Raúl Jiménez, he made a fine save to the right eight minutes before half-time to keep out a side-footed volley from the Mexican.

If anything, the fingertip he had on Alex Iwobi’s attempt to steer the ball onto the crossbar five minutes later was even better. “He was good,” Ange Postecoglou said. “If you lose your goalkeeper, it’s important to have someone who is experienced and won’t be intimidated by stepping into those shoes. What you saw out there is what we see every day in training. He still has a great work ethic.”

The red card inevitably slowed Fulham’s momentum and they responded by going for five goals defensively to block the flanks to Spurs. Sasa Lukic might have been lucky earlier not to get a second yellow card for an ugly tackle on Son Heung-min – he was substituted almost immediately – but Fulham were reduced to 10 points as Cairney was sent off after a VAR review because he stuck his studs into Dejan Kulusevski’s calf. Even Marco Silva accepted that it was the right decision.

And as good as Fulham were, it was also true that Tottenham struggled to get going. The comparison with City’s performance clearly frustrated Postecoglou, who pointed out that at the Etihad he had Vicario in goal and was able to bring Timo Werner and Brennan Johnson off the bench. “It seems that at this club everything we do well is used as a millstone to bring us down at every second opportunity,” he said.

“It’s really important that we don’t react to any of this. I’ve seen so much fiddle play across clubs, with a centre-back out and we’ve got two out. We have to protect our players and at the moment we don’t have too many options and we have to manage them as best we can.”

Since the City game, Tottenham have lost their goalkeeper while Dominic Solanke was sent home due to illness and they felt the need to at least give Kulusevski some rest by keeping him on the bench. This meant Son had to be pushed into the middle, making it more difficult for Spurs to keep possession of the ball. This largely limited their danger to transition, although James Maddison hit the post under the wall with a clever free-kick just before half-time.

Fulham were the most dominant, Forster fending off attacks from Issa Diop and Iwobi as Tottenham took the lead in the 54th minute, and Johnson left strangely unmolested to score his tenth goal of the season from a Werner cross. Was this the rare case of Spurs winning a game in which they were not clearly in the lead? That wasn’t it. Iwobi cut the ball back and Cairney scored the equalizer from the edge of the box.

The draw means Spurs remain ahead of Fulham in the table, but on Sunday afternoon there was little doubt who was the better team.