Leicester City have withstood a late Norwich City rally to secure a 2-1 victory and return to winning ways in the Premier League at Carrow Road.
The game began at a high tempo with both sides applying pressure from the off and exchanging early sights of goal, Cameron Jerome playing a one-two with Wes Hoolahan and firing over the bar, before Shinji Okazaki could not keep his header down from Marc Albrighton's cross.
Vardy was always likely to be Leicester's main threat and his low effort was saved by the legs of John Ruddy after he was sent sprinting down the left in a swift counter-attack.
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Russell Martin's last-ditch block was all that stopped Jeffrey Schlupp's shot finding the net and Danny Drinkwater was denied by as Leicester looked the more likely, and with 27 minutes gone a golden opportunity for the opener arrived.
Sebastien Bassong was deemed to have tripped Vardy in the box and the England international got up to take the spot kick himself, calmly sending Ruddy the wrong way to score for the fifth league game in a row and bring his tally to seven for the season.
Schlupp was inches away from doubling the lead when he just could not make contact with Albrighton's ball across goal as the Foxes continued to control proceedings, but the visitors could not add to their lead before the half-time whistle.
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Christian Fuchs nearly headed an inadvertent equaliser into his own net seconds after the restart, but the lead was doubled just a minute later as N'Golo Kante slipped Schlupp through on the counter-attack and the winger smashed home into the far corner.
Norwich threw Dieumerci Mbokani on for Matt Jarvis as Alex Neil searched for a route back into the match, and the substitution paid almost immediate dividends.
The Congolese striker rattled the crossbar from Robbie Brady's floated cross, and just 90 seconds later he got his side back into the game when he tapped home from close range with just over 20 minutes remaining.
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Leonardo Ulloa thought that he had restored the two-goal advantage minutes afterwards but his header was disallowed for an apparent foul on Ruddy by Robert Huth, but Kasper Schmeichel had to turn a fierce Nathan Redmond effort onto the post late on as the home side pressed.
Both sides had chances in a frantic six minutes of injury time, but Leicester ultimately held on to return to winning ways in the Premier League.
