Harvey Barnes salvages vital point for Leicester at Brentford

Leicester have made a habit of doing things the hard way this season and it needed an equaliser from Harvey Barnes to rescue a valuable point against 10-man Brentford after Brendan Rodgers’s side displayed their inability to defend set pieces once again.

Mathias Jensen’s deflected goal that rounded off a brilliant corner routine had seemed to put Thomas Frank’s side on course for a place in the top six heading into the international break. But staring down the barrel of sixth straight defeat that would have left them in the bottom three, Rodgers will take comfort from a battling performance after Barnes struck at the start of the second half and Brentford substitute Shandon Baptiste was set off for picking up two bookings in the space of minutes.

It seemed that Leicester may have turned a corner just before the World Cup when they recorded five wins from six matches in all competitions but, despite impressive wins over Tottenham and Aston Villa, they had since reverted to their early season form that yielded zero points from their first six league fixtures. But while they remain one of only three teams in Europe’s top five leagues not to have registered a clean sheet this year after Daniel Iversen was handed his first league start in place of Danny Ward in goal, at least this time they showed some desire to dig in for a scrap against Brentford, who hadn’t lost at home since facing Arsenal back in September.

Rodgers’ side looked like being in for a long afternoon when they were forced to spend the opening 10 minutes defending for their lives. Only a well-timed clearance at the back post from Timothy Castagne that cut out Rico Henry’s tempting cross for Bryan Mbuemo kept the hosts from taking the lead as they piled