El-Hadji Diouf revels in his anti-hero status. He is a cult figure bent on bending the rules to their outer limits, creating a maelstrom of fury around him and poking two fingers at the Establishment bores. To judge from his hair and wear, he gives not a jot about the fashion police, either.

Yet every team needs a player who lives on the edge, riles opponents into distraction and can provide an inspirational spark when all hope appears to have evaporated. In Diouf, Blackburn Rovers have that man — a key component as the Barclays Premier League relegation struggle reaches its climax.

The forward, who moved from Sunderland in January, had assisted Blackburn’s unlikely victory over Tottenham Hotspur at Ewood Park on Saturday. He swung over a last-minute corner, Heurelho Gomes, the Tottenham goalkeeper, fumbled and André Ooijer tapped the ball in. Grand larceny, utter robbery, scandalous.

Yet Diouf did not care. He celebrated wildly, rather too closely to the visiting fans for Gomes’s liking, and, at the end, the two marched threateningly towards each other, like a pair of rutting stags. Time and again Diouf had to be restrained before he wheeled off, arms in aeroplane mode, to jive with the home supporters.

“Diouf is an emotional guy,” Ryan Nelsen, the Blackburn central defender, said. “He brings a lot of personality to the team and I mean that in the right way. Since he’s come here, he has been fantastic, a real breath of fresh air. He’s hungry and he wants to win. So maybe it was just a bit of that.

“When you pinch a win in those circumstances, it can get quite emotional. You have to understand that he is cut from a different mould to a lot of us. But to me, that’s awesome. It would be boring if we were all the same. He’s a fantastic lad and wants to win so badly when he’s on the field. Players like him are infectious.”

Diouf could have scored from an early cross by Morten Gamst Pedersen but headed wide. “He should have hit the target,” Sam Allardyce, the Blackburn manager, mused. From then on, Tottenham’s flowing counter-attacking, mostly from the quick feet of Aaron Lennon, Luka Modric and Jermaine Jenas, eased them into a position of complete control.

When Robbie Keane slotted a penalty past Paul Robinson, his former team-mate at White Hart Lane, after Gaël Givet had handled, justice was done. When Tottenham scorned a series of half-chances, it was not. Complacency crept in. Finish your prey or be made to pay.

Tottenham, unbeaten in six matches, paid. Wilson Palacios was sent off for two clumsy tackles on David Dunn in the space of a minute, though there was barely any contact in the second challenge. “The sending-off was diabolical,” Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham manager, said.

Christopher Samba, the centre back thrust up front to replace the injured Jason Roberts, set up Benni McCarthy for the equaliser. As the chance of the reborn Tottenham moving into seventh place in the league, albeit temporarily, disappeared in a haze of uncertainty, Ooijer pounced and Diouf pouted and partied.

Blackburn Rovers (4-4-2): P Robinson 7 — K Andrews 5, C Samba 6, R Nelsen 6, G Givet 5 — E-H Diouf 5, A Mokoena 5 (sub: Tugay Kerimoglu, 63min 5), S Warnock 7, M G Pedersen 3 (sub: D Dunn, 26 6) — B McCarthy 4, J Roberts 3 (sub: A Ooijer, 46 6). Substitutes not used: J Brown, C Villanueva, K Treacy, M Olsson. Booked: Samba. Next: Liverpool (a).

Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-1-1): H Gomes 4 — V Corluka 4, J Woodgate 6, L King 6, B Assou-Ekotto 6 — A Lennon 6 (sub: D Zokora, 81), J Jenas 5, W Palacios 7, L Modric 6 — R Keane 6 — D Bent 6. Substitutes not used: C Cudicini, D Bentley, T Huddlestone, R Pavlyuchenko, M Dawson, P Chimbonda. Booked: Palacios. Sent off: Palacios. Next: West Ham United (h).

Referee: P Walton Attendance: 21,891