Tom Cairney equalizes but then sees red as Fulham earn a point at Tottenham | first division

It would be tempting to talk about Tottenham being at least predictable in their unpredictability, of the way they can't help but follow a great result with a disappointing one, of the inevitability of them, having beat Manchester City 4-0 last weekend, and they couldn't beat Fulham at home. But in reality the story on Sunday was much more about Fulham, how well they played and how disconcerting it was that they didn't take the three points after having had the better of most of the game.

What made their performance even more impressive was that they did it without midfielder Andreas Pereira. Marco Silva denied being excluded after giving an interview to the Brazilian media in which he appeared to suggest he would like to move to Marseille to play under Roberto De Zerbi. “He'll come back to help the team like he's been helping us every week,” Silva said. “I don't make decisions around interviews. I don't protect players because of social media. My decisions arise from daily sessions with the players. I wasn't ready. It was a technical decision of mine.”

That Fulham were not ahead when Tom Cairney was sent off in the 83rd minute was almost entirely due to the heroics of Tottenham's substitute goalkeeper, Fraser Forster, who had not played a league game for 18 months and whose obvious differences with the starter Guglielmo Vicario, absent with an ankle fracturehad been a cause of much concern before the game. Only 7% of Vicario's passes had been made in the opposite field this season, by far the lowest figure in the league, and he had maintained a 90.8% pass completion rate. Forster, who completed 77.8% of his passes and hit four of his 14 long shots, is a more old-fashioned goalkeeper.

But however justified the anxiety about his ability to play from the back may be, at 36, Forster's reflexes remain sharp. After a brave early block from Raúl Jiménez, he made a good save by diving to his right to avoid a side volley from the Mexican eight minutes before the break. If anything, Alex Iwobi's attempt to deflect it onto the crossbar five minutes later was even better. “It was good,” Ange Postecoglou said. “When you lose your goalie, the key is to have someone with experience who isn't intimidated by filling those shoes. What you saw there we see every day in training. “He still has a great work ethic.”

The red card inevitably slowed Fulham's momentum, and they reacted by going five at the back to close down wide areas for Spurs. Perhaps Sasa Lukic had earlier been lucky not to receive a second yellow card for a nasty lunge on Son Heung-min (he was substituted almost immediately), but Fulham were reduced to 10 when Cairney was sent off following a VAR review for planting his studs on Dejan Kulusevski's calf. Even Silva accepted that it was the right decision.

And yet, as good as Fulham were, it was also true that Tottenham struggled to get going. The comparison with City's performance has clearly frustrated Postecoglou, who pointed out that at the Etihad he had had Vicario in goal and had been able to get Timo Werner and Brennan Johnson off the bench. “It seems like at this club, everything we do well is used as a millstone to bring us down at every other opportunity,” he said. “It's really important that we don't react to any of that. I've seen a lot of fiddling in the sticks with one centre-back out and we have two out. “We are going to have to protect our players and right now we don't have too many options and we have to manage them as best we can.”

Since the game against City, Tottenham have lost their goalkeeper, while Dominic Solanke was sent home through illness and the need was felt to give Kulusevski at least some rest by leaving him on the bench. That meant Son had to be moved back into the centre, making it difficult for Spurs to retain possession. As a result, their threat was largely limited to transitions, although James Maddison hit the post with a clever under-the-wall free-kick just before half-time.

Fulham were at their most dominant, Forster denying attempts by Issa Diop and Iwobi at the far post as Tottenham took a 54th-minute lead, Johnson coming out strangely unmarked to score his tenth of the season from Werner's cross. Was this a rare case of Spurs winning a game in which they had not been significantly on top? It wasn't. Iwobi cut the ball in and Cairney scored the equalizer from the edge of the area.

The draw keeps Spurs above Fulham in the table, but there was little doubt which team was the better side on Sunday afternoon.