A victory for Tottenham Hotspur, a result for lovers of irony. Jonathan Woodgate headed in Benoît Assou-Ekotto’s cross with four minutes left to pinch all the points last night, yet balls sprayed into the penalty area had been precisely Tottenham’s problem all evening. A tactic that badly exposed them proved invaluable in the end.

Harry Redknapp’s side are now five points clear of the relegation zone, breathing space as their attention shifts to cup competitions — not that the manager’s focus ever really wavers from the Barclays Premier League, given Tottenham’s perilous position.

This outcome lifts them to within a point of Hull City and mid-table is in sight. “It was a massive step,” Redknapp said.

He is sure to rotate like a centrifuge on top speed for the Uefa Cup round of 32, second leg against Shakhtar Donetsk on Thursday, given that a Wembley date with Manchester United in the Carling Cup final falls only three days later. Then come league games against Middlesbrough and Sunderland. In less than two weeks, Tottenham could be nearly safe from the drop, having retained the Carling Cup. Or they might be out of all the knockout competitions and sucked back towards the bottom three.

Fatigue is an obvious concern, but there is a bigger danger for Tottenham. They are in pieces when defending set-pieces. With Carlo Cudicini doing a convincing impersonation of Heurelho Gomes in goal, Tottenham were vulnerable. It summed up their defensive misrule that Woodgate had to be substituted soon after scoring because his team-mate, Vedran Corluka, accidentally whacked him in the face as both challenged for the ball.

Woodgate, the scorer of the winning goal in last season’s Carling Cup final, left the pitch bleeding profusely and required stitches, but Redknapp said that he should be fit for Sunday. “He’s a tough nut,” the manager said. He was more disturbed by the brutality of the fixture list.

“The whole fixture list is crazy,” Redknapp said. “What am I supposed to do, play the same team on Thursday? It’s a crazy week. Something needs to be done. I know people on TV have been critical about resting players, but tonight was the all-important game.”

Hull must endure three matches in six days, too. They host Sheffield United in an FA Cup fifth-round replay on Thursday before an important clash against Blackburn Rovers on Sunday. “Maybe their experience as opposed to our inexperience won it,” Phil Brown, the Hull manager, said. “We always said it was going to be a learning curve.”

That curve is pointing in a downward direction, with Hull having won only once in the top flight in the past four months. Brown is one of English football’s most enlightened managers, but Hull’s tactics last night were classic relegation-battle stuff: “Get into ’em. Mess ’em up.”

So despite Hull’s loftier league position, this resembled a cup-tie in which a team from a lower division try to bounce classier opponents out of their stride. It worked in the first half as Tottenham were harassed.

Wembley showpieces? Sure. Desperate fights to avoid the drop? They don’t come naturally to the Londoners — they are built to sashay down the red carpet, not roll up their sleeves and respond to a red alert. Yet, as in so many cup-ties, moments of class can count for more than massive effort.

In the seventeenth minute, after a nicely worked corner, Aaron Lennon was allowed room to place a shot into the corner from the edge of the area. However, with Hull shelling the Tottenham area so often, the visiting team’s frailty was bound to be exposed and Hull duly equalised ten minutes later. Cudicini flailed at a corner, the ball rebounded off Wilson Palacios towards the net and was bundled in by Michael Turner.

Redknapp joked that he had no time to get a suit made for Wembley and would have to wear the one made last year for his predecessor, Juande Ramos. After inheriting an unbalanced squad with an untrustworthy defence, you might think Redknapp would be desperate to avoid any more of the Spaniard’s hand-me-downs.

Hull City (4-4-2): M Duke — S Ricketts, A Gardner, M Turner, A Dawson — D Marney, I Ashbee, K Zayatte (sub: Geovanni, 87min), K Kilbane — D Cousin (sub: B Mendy, 67), R Garcia (sub: Manucho, 79). Substitutes not used: B Myhill, N Doyle, N Barmby, P Halmosi. Booked: Dawson, Ashbee.

Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2): C Cudicini — V Corluka, J Woodgate (sub: M Dawson, 89), L King, B Assou-Ekotto — A Lennon (sub: D Zokora, 87), J Jenas, W Palacios, L Modric — D Bent (sub: R Pavlyuchenko, 72), R Keane. Substitutes not used: H Gomes, D Bentley, T Huddlestone, P Chimbonda. Booked: Modric.

Referee: L Probert.