Leicester City vs West Ham: Leonardo Ulloa did more than equalise as referee splits opinion - five things we learned

Leicester City 2 West Ham 2: Foxes go eight points clear at the top of the Premier League, but not without being made to work for it on a dramatic afternoon in the East Midlands

Leonardo Ulloa celebrates scoring a penalty (Getty)

Leicester's fairy-tale not all about luck

Jamie Vardy’s party was postponed, cancelled and recommenced – albeit in the absence of its host - in 94 scarcely believable minutes in the East Midlands sun. There’s a theory that Leicester City’s emphatic title march has been built on good fortune. A case study came after just two minutes: Dimitri Payet finds the forehead of Cheikhou Kouyaté, ghosting in past a defence who have not conceded in 490 minutes.

The very tip of Kasper Schmeichel’s left glove gets a touch on it, but it is still – surely - destined to trickle over the line. The ball spins violently, it veers towards the gaping net. But somehow it cannons off one post and onto the other. Case in point. With Vardy later being dismissed, Wes Morgan giving away a penalty and Leonardo Ulloa scoring an added-time spot-kick, it’s difficult to tell if either side would consider themselves lucky after this latest King Power epic.

Jamie Vardy reacts to being shown a red card (Getty)

Referee splits opinion, officials need help

“I'm too biased to comment,” mused Gary Lineker on Twitter, “but the inconsistency of the refereeing is remarkable.” Achieving consensus on the performance of Jonathan Moss, the referee who left the pitch flanked by security guards, would likely fetch even wider odds than the 5000-1 offered on Leicester’s title chances back in August.

Days after Leicestershire-based Kevin Friend was dropped from refereeing Tottenham’s trip to Stoke City, another name usually reserved for the bottom of match reports jumped to the top. Moss’s decisions – to hand Vardy a second booking for simulation and to award both sides sketchy penalties – could all too easily have gone the other way. Unless the rules are clarified, adhered to and backed with video technology, it is difficult to imagine other referees avoiding the abuse levelled at Moss this weekend.

How to beat Leicester? Still no one has the answer

Slaven Bilić does not herald from any recognisable mould, nor does he follow in the footsteps of those before him. Especially when Messrs Allardyce, Koeman and Benítez have all tried and failed to play Leicester at their own game. If West Ham were going to pick up a result against a side who had already beaten them twice this season, it was going to be on Bilić’s terms. It was his wholehearted adherence to the ‘West Ham way’ which got him the job, of course, but it all too often leads to naivety at the back also.

Vardy galloped through the visitors’ defence at warp-speed as Claudio Ranieri’s fine-tuned counter-attacking philosophy reaped yet further rewards for the League leaders. Only when handed a numerical advantage did Bilić’s militia of Champions League hopefuls pose a credible threat. Despite giving them an almighty scare, West Ham must be added to the list of sides yet to work Leicester out.

Kanté dominated the midfield battle for Leicester

Kanté the most impressive of the PFA nominees

The duel for the PFA Player of the Year award was not so much a subplot as a dominant theme with Vardy, Payet, N'Golo Kanté and Riyad Mahrez all in direct competition - in front of the world’s media. American, Japanese, Italian and Australian television stations had made the trip to see who would prevail. Ranieri diplomatically backed all three of his “sons” to win the award jointly while Bilić prophesied that Vardy – if not Payet – will likely be handed with the accolade.

But it is Kanté who is most deserving of acclaim on this display. The midfield hustler kept his exhausted side in the match as their guests not so much turned but cranked the screw after Vardy’s dismissal. Extinguishing fires in front of Schmeichel’s goal and providing the spark for Leicester to start some of their own, Kanté is staking a claim for the top prize.

Ulloa did more then just equalise

It is often said of teams struggling at the basement of the League at this nerve-shredding time of year that they have “forgotten” how to win. Leicester, it transpires, have forgotten how to lose. To a chorus of “2-1 to the referee” and with their manager statue-like on the side-lines, the fairy-tale was turning sour. The naysayers who have doubted them all year finally had a slip-up to sink their teeth into. Ranieri’s boys, though, simply would not accept defeat.

Kanté hurried the opposition into countless mistakes, Danny Drinkwater never stopped running while Morgan and Robert Huth carried themselves with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop at the back. Nobody said winning the Premier League title would be easy. But will Ulloa’s last-gasp leveller make a difference off the pitch too? “It is more important than the one point,” said Ranieri. “Psychologically, it is fantastic.”