Tottenham vs Leicester City match report: Harry Kane scores late from the spot to deny Foxes safe passage

Tottenham Hotspur 2 Leicester City 2

(2016 Getty Images)

So much for resting players in the FA Cup. Having been given a break following a draining Premier League campaign, Harry Kane ultimately climbed off the substitutes’ bench to earn a replay which only adds to his and Tottenham’s workload.

The England forward’s 89th-minute penalty, after referee Robert Madley had punished Nathan Dyer for flicking a hand at the ball while challenging Danny Rose, ensures Spurs will face Leicester for the third time in nine days when they meet again in a replay a week tomorrow.

Kane may feel as though he had been promised a half-day only to be told he must now do some overtime to pay for it, but the celebrations at the end suggested that Spurs retain the ambition to end their 25-year wait to win the Cup once again.

“We are alive and have another chance to play,” manager Mauricio Pochettino said. “Another game is tough for us, but also for them. We just must be strong in the mind.

“In football, you try and never give up and it is important to stay in the competition. But we deserved more because we dominated the game.”

Fortune may have smiled on Spurs with the awarding of the penalty, but Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri refused to blame Madley for the decision.

“I didn’t see it, but the most important thing is that the referee sees it and gives it,” Ranieri said. “We had eight players who had not been playing for some time, but now they played and they deserved a positive result – 2-2 is a positive result.”

With the clubs separated by four points in the top four, and a Premier League encounter looming at White Hart Lane on Wednesday evening, only the staunchest Cup traditionalists would have expected Pochettino and Ranieri to do anything but make wholesale changes for this tie.

Shinji Okazaki celebrates scoring for Leicester City (Getty)

Such is the reality of a season with crucial midweek league fixtures a couple of days after the third-round weekend. Similar scheduling follows the fourth round later this month, so it may not be until the last 16 that the top-flight clubs begin to give the Cup the focus and attention it merits.

A congested festive fixture programme has already left many Premier League players on their knees, with both Arsène Wenger, Louis van Gaal and Jürgen Klopp all talking alarmingly about too many of their personnel at Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool respectively being in the “red zone” in terms of fitness levels.

Spurs and Leicester have both strained every sinew to climb into the top four by the halfway stage of the campaign, but the volume of changes made by both managers was stark nonetheless. Of the 22 players on the pitch at the start of the game, 15 had not begun their club’s previous fixture, with Pochettino making seven changes and Ranieri eight.

Jamie Vardy, Leicester’s leading goalscorer, was sat with his team-mates on the substitutes’ bench but not involved in the 18-man matchday squad, having undergone minor groin surgery last week.

This was a day for the fringe players to make their mark and earn themselves the chance to do so again by helping their team into the fourth round.

But while Pochettino left the likes of Kane, Dele Alli and Erik Lamela on the bench, the Spurs manager retained the creativity of Christian Eriksen in the heart of his midfield and the Dane was the home team’s outstanding player, before and after opening the scoring.

It was a goal which Leicester should have prevented, with poor defending creating the space for Nacer Chadli to cross from the left after the Spurs midfielder had been released by Joshua Onomah. Chadli’s cross took a deflection off a Leicester shin which deceived goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, who could only push the ball towards the feet of Eriksen, who was lurking unmarked, 12 yards out. With time and space, Eriksen took a touch to control before guiding a well-placed shot beyond Schmeichel’s right hand.

Leicester’s unfamiliar starting XI now faced a challenge against a lively Spurs team and the visitors struggled to escape their defensive third, with Marcin Wasilewski earning a booking for a reckless challenge which stopped Rose in his tracks on 14 minutes.

The Polish defender then made a positive contribution at the other end by equalising with a powerful header five minutes later.

Once again, poor defending was a contributory factor, with Spurs centre-half Toby Alderweireld losing Wasilewski before the Leicester player headed Demarai Gray’s corner into the roof of the net.

The goal lifted Leicester and their fringe players began to gain confidence, with the 19-year-old left-back Ben Chilwell impressing on only his second senior appearance for the club.

With both clubs focusing their energies on Champions League qualification, a replay was clearly the nightmare scenario for both Pochettino and Ranieri and the Leicester manager served notice of his intentions by replacing N’Golo Kante with Shinji Okazaki at half-time. The Italian was upping the ante, challenging his team to win the game at the first attempt, but even the Tinkerman could not have anticipated such an instant reward.

Within three minutes of the restart, Okazaki had given Leicester the lead after breaking through the Spurs defence to prod the ball beyond goalkeeper Michel Vorm. A weak defensive clearance had placed Tottenham under immediate pressure, but Okazaki was outside the penalty area and seemingly no threat as he received the ball but then waltzed past Tom Carroll and Alderweireld. Vorm blocked his initial shot but the £7m summer signing from Mainz reacted quickest.

Pochettino threw on Kane and Alli in the closing stages but the game appeared lost for the home side until Madley pointed to the spot. And Kane did what he does best to earn the replay that neither team really wanted.