Another week, another remarkable Leicester City comeback, and if this time the Foxes could not take all three points after falling two goals behind, the fact of their being away from home, and some way from their best, made the salvaging of a draw against Stoke City almost as impressive as their beating of Aston Villa last Sunday.
Not, said Claudio Ranieri, that they can keep putting themselves under that sort of pressure and expect a return. “It’s not possible all the time,” acknowledged Leicester’s Italian manager said. “We started well, but then we lost a lot of ball in the middle of the pitch and gave [Stoke] the spirit to attack us.
“But we said in the dressing room at half-time, if we get the next goal, everything is possible. It is important to show good spirit, good character and a good reaction.”
That, once again, they did, though the Potters played a big part in allowing them back into the game. After a first-half in which Bojan Krkic, making his first start for eight months, was inspirational, a penalty clumsily conceded by Marko Arnautovic gave the visitors hope, before Jamie Vardy, with his third goal in as many games, opportunistically secured the draw.
Mark Hughes was not happy, though given he was convinced Jon Walters had been fouled at least twice in the passage of play just preceding Vardy’s goal, his ire was, in part, directed at the referee, Andre Marriner.
“First it looks like Arnautovic actually catches [Danny Drinkwater’s] heel just outside the box, but given the performance of the officials today it was always likely it was going to be given as a penalty,” the Stoke manager said.
“Then in the buildup to the second we maybe got a bit distracted by the referee not officiating as well as he should have done, Walters was impeded two or three times, it wasn’t given, they cleared their lines and we don’t defend the long ball correctly. The referee said he was trying to play an advantage, but it certainly wasn’t an advantage to us.”
The ease with which Riyad Mahrez turned Erik Pieters in the first few minutes raised eyebrows, and it was the Algerian who drew the first save of the game from Jack Butland, but the response from Stoke was outstanding.
A superb run down the left by Arnautovic, during which he twice left Ritchie De Laet trailing, concluded with a fine pass into the area for Krkic, running in behind the Leicester back four, to hit the ball first time past the exposed Kasper Schmeichel.
It was only another seven minutes before poor Schmeichel was again facing a one-on-one situation. This time it was Walters who had the goalkeeper to beat after Wes Morgan’s mis-kicked back-pass. Like Krkic before him, Walters gave the goalkeeper no chance with a composed finish.
Marc Albrighton replaced Gokhan Inler at half-time, but it was Arnautovic who, inadvertently but clumsily, pulled the Foxes back into the game by bringing down Drinkwater inside the penalty area five minutes after the break. Mahrez, whose pass Drinkwater had been running on to, converted the penalty.
Ranieri then replaced the ineffectual Shinji Okazaki with the more robust Leo Ulloa, who flicked on the long ball which saw Vardy hold off the challenge off Marc Wilson and poke the ball past Butland.
Neither side could find a winner, though Stoke came closest as Geoff Cameron’s header bounced just past Schmeichel’s left-hand post, and the goalkeeper had to punch away Krcic’s curling free-kick.“In the first half we were good value, but we needed to close down key moments, which we didn’t,” said Hughes. “You have to give the opposition credit – they play to the strengths of their players, and if you give them any inclination they might still be in the game, they’ll keep going.”
