He sometimes gets cheekily called Rafa’s son. In a more brazen way some call him Rafa’s pet. I wonder how the imaginative rumours have never had him as Rafa’s dressing-room informant. Most of the time he is asked to play on the lateral side of the field, today though, with the stakes being extremely high and the injury list looking as long as a NHS waiting list he has been asked to lead the line on his own and rather than digging a furrow on the sidelines to let the rainwater drift, he was asked to get the shovel and get into the thick of it as there has been too much snow that was threatening to paralyse the system. And Dirk Kuyt not only didn’t disappoint but reminded us that a working man can have his hand full of callus but that doesn’t mean he carries no charm.

It was as early as the fifth minute when Pepe Reina had a long kick that was chested coolly by the same Dutchman. Alberto Aquilani was the closest and laid it off to him. From outside the penalty area, Kuyt this time thought only of the target and his accurate shot was too much for the six clean-sheets in a row Heruelho Gomez and put Liverpool in front.

The remaining forty minutes of the first half were not always easy on the eye. Tottenham were sometimes showing the better ideas but the eleven redmen on the pitch made up for it with enough grit to build a new ground. Jamie Carragher rounded up the lads for a pre-match huddle before kick-off and like he did to Jerzy Dudek in Istanbul prior to the shoot-out he reminded them that it’s time to get dirty, fight for the cause and push the boundaries. And he then personified the battle and his words, in a particular moment busting his guts to win a corner as he outpaced Gareth Bale in the process. The makeshift central defensive pairing of Martin Skrtel and Sotirios Kyrgiakos held its own, with the latter particularly bustling around making up for his limitations with his enthusiasm as his hair fly around.

The second forty-five minutes started with a scare as a mix-up between the same Greek and Reina allowed Jermaine Defoe to undo Reina’s possession of the ball and prod home. The referee though rightly spotted an infringement during the course of action and disallowed the goal. Anfield felt rather shaken by the let-off and murmurs were taking place the sing-songs. At times like these, even the sight of a ping-pong ball can be mistaken for that of a golf ball ready to be lurched at you. But Anfield today was no golf course and the defence had no holes in it. It was actually Liverpool that threatened mostly to score the second goal of the game, and it was only Philip Degen’s strange reluctance in front of goal that didn’t close the game, when a great move and then pass by Kuyt paved it all for him.

David Ngog was given the nod to have the last ten minutes of the match in place of the tiring Alberto Aquilani and to stretch Spurs further. He did his job admirably, made space for himself to have a shot at goal and then won the penalty. Kuyt took the responsibility. He showed the instinct of a striker, sent the keeper one way and the ball powerfully the other way. He was though asked to retake his kick after an apparent encroachment that must have had an effect on the keeper as much as a tax forms have on Harry Redknapp. But Dirk Kuyt wasn’t too effected as he retook the kick and sent Gomes once again the wrong way.

As Rafa Benitez waved back to the Kop, Liverpool got just one point away from the same Spurs. False dawns we had many so far, but a replication of the energy exerted by the men in red today will be enough to light the whole city for the rest of the season.