Wearside proved an unexpectedly hazardous staging post on Liverpool’s road towards a potential title with two Jermain Defoe penalties and some defiant goalkeeping from Vito Mannone restricting Jürgen Klopp’s side to an unwelcome draw.

It leaves them five points behind the leaders Chelsea, who visit Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday, and Klopp appeared personally affronted by this setback. Irritated by the Anfield manager’s annoyance at not winning, David Moyes mischievously suggested that had he been German rather than Scottish he might have collected some praise for choreographing a resilient, pressing performance which keeps his third-bottom team in touching distance of safety from relegation.

If Defoe was, once again, Moyes’s saviour, it should be acknowledged that Liverpool’s Sadio Mané discarded two points for the visitors with a ludicrous handball in the 84th minute. That came 12 minutes after Mané had given the visitors the lead for the second time on an afternoon when Daniel Sturridge also scored, and impressed enormously, before limping off with an unspecified ankle injury the manager trusts is not overly serious.

Jordan Pickford’s knee injury has offered Mannone a chance to show off his goalkeeping reflexes and they looked reassuringly sharp as the Italian dived smartly to repel Sturridge’s early low shot before tipping away Georginio Wijnaldum’s curler.

It was a bitter afternoon, with temperatures hovering just above freezing, but Mannone must have felt increasingly warm as he kept out another curving shot, dispatched by Sturridge this time, following some fine approach work on Roberto Firmino’s part.

Mannone, though, is only human and after his defence had failed to deal with the fallout from a James Milner corner in the 20th minute, Dejan Lovren’s miscued shot bounced into Sturridge’s path and from around six yards out, the sometime England striker directed a looping header into the net.

While that was only Sturridge’s second Premier League goal this season, Defoe soon registered his 10th, equalising from the penalty spot after Didier Ndong stole between Wijnaldum and Ragnar Klavan as he accelerated into the area and the latter sent him tumbling. Although Simon Mignolet guessed the direction correctly, Defoe’s low, unerring execution proved far too good for the Belgian keeper as the ball arrowed snugly inside a post and into the bottom corner.

West Ham remain extremely keen on spiriting Sunderland’s leading scorer back to east London but that represents a doomsday scenario Moyes surely cannot even bear to contemplate.

Within minutes of drawing level, Sunderland should have taken the lead after Adnan Januzaj’s fancy footwork set up Defoe for a shot Mignolet performed wonders to get a hand to and push away, with Fabio Borini directing the rebound wide.

Moyes had dubbed his players “useless” – among other things – after they surrendered 4-1 at Burnley on Saturday but rearranged in a 4-4-1-1 formation they, initially at least, seemed in much better shape. So much so that Mignolet was required to make a couple of decent saves from Defoe and then Jack Rodwell before Sturridge scored the opener.

Klopp, meanwhile, simply looked frozen through as he shivered on the touchline. The German was furious about having to play again less than 48 hours after his side’s New Year’s Eve tea-time win over Manchester City and as Liverpool’s attempts to bypass John O’Shea and Papy Djilobodji in the Sunderland defence became increasingly jaded, those dire prophecies of physical and mental fatigue appeared close to fulfilment.

Yet even though the visitors were missing the injured Jordan Henderson and Philippe Coutinho, and were further hampered by rather flat displays from Adam Lallana, Emre Can and Wijnaldum in particular, they continued to dominate possession and should really have regained the lead when Nathaniel Clyne crossed well but Mané somehow missed the most inviting of openings.

Moyes was convinced his team should have had another penalty after Borini’s chip struck Can on an arm but it did not look deliberate and the referee had no hesitation about waving play on. Liverpool, meanwhile, felt they might have had a penalty of their own due to Seb Larsson’s tug on Clyne.

It seemed the sort of day when set pieces would decide matters but Klopp’s players belatedly rallied and proved they were not quite all out of ideas after all. Lallana and Sturridge exchanged passes before Lallana’s cute backheel cued the striker up for an angled shot Mannone performed acrobatics to divert to safety.

When the resultant corner was inadvertently flicked on by Djilobodji, it fell to Mané who, completely unmarked at the far post, guided it into the net from close range.

Not for the first time, Sunderland paid the price for slapdash defending, with their protestations Mané had been in an offside position irrelevant as Djilobodji’s intervention played him onside.

Creditably refusing to fold, Moyes’s side fought back and won another penalty. It came after Defoe collapsed in the face of a joint challenge from Lucas Leiva and Can and Larsson’s resultant free-kick was handled by, of all people, Mané who blatantly, ridiculously, stuck an arm up.

Up stepped Defoe again. This time, he sent Mignolet the wrong way, the ball flying low into the same corner as his first as Sunderland stuck two strictly metaphorical fingers in Klopp’s direction.