Leicester forward Leonardo Ulloa scored a penalty in the fifth minute of stoppage time to rescue a 2-2 draw for the Premier League leaders against West Ham after top-scorer Jamie Vardy was sent off on Sunday.
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After having already received a yellow card, he dove in the second half when in the box, and the referee didn’t buy it, quickly showing him the second yellow and ejecting him. In my book, a fine call from the ref.
West Ham boss Slaven Bilic refused to criticise referee Jon Moss but insisted he was fooled into giving Leicester a point-saving penalty. When we had our penalty, Wes Morgan said: ‘he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s been bad all game.’ It’s happening every week and it’s unacceptable.
Jamie Vardy opened the scoring for Leicester before being sent off for a second yellow card. The goalkeeper had kept five consecutive clean sheets before Sunday and he made a decisive save in the first minute against West Ham, pushing Cheikhou Kouyate’s header onto the post and saving Michail Antonio’s header before Vardy’s opener.
“We will always fight to the death, and that’s what we did”, said Leicester’s Danny Simpson to Sky Sports after the match.
Leicester lead the standings with 73 points from 34 matches, followed by Spurs who have 65 from 33 and play their game in hand at Stoke City on Monday. When we conceded the second goal, my players wanted to draw and it was unbelievable, fantastic.
Leicester City is in the process of making one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the history of modern football, considering crippling debts forced the club into administration in 2002.
Moss then awarded West Ham a penalty, which was dispatched by Andy Carroll before Aaron Cresswell scored a screamer to put the visitors in the lead.
Claudio Ranieri’s men, however, kept battling and in the 95th-minute of the match Moss, in what seemed a far less clear-cut case than the Huth incident, pointed to the spot following Carroll’s challenge on Jeffrey Schlupp. “The guy went down, he made a touch and went down, but I’m saying with all this pressure and situation, they are top of the table, and you have 30,000-whatever people screaming on every decision, it’s hard for him”. We could have been third in the league now if we had eight points.
“If the other team, it could be Tottenham or Arsenal, is better than us and win the title, well done”.
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“Of course, this is a huge disappointment, but we have six big games left and we want to finish as high as possible”.
