The title slipping away from Leicester City? Don’t you believe it!

Well that’s just made it interesting. Leicester’s controversial draw against West Ham on Sunday and Tottenham’s emphatic win over Stoke the following night has reduced the gap between ourselves and Spurs to just five points, and once again the pundits are saying that the title is there for the taking. For Spurs that is.

Now don’t get me wrong, having watched the Stoke vs Spurs game the north London club played some wonderful football, but they are still five points behind us.

Just take that in for a minute. Five points. If it was Manchester City, Arsenal or even Liverpool that were five points ahead at this point people would be saying the title’s won. And apparently, a draw for Leicester against West Ham was fatal for our title challenge, whist the same wasn’t said after Spurs’ draws with Liverpool and Arsenal.

Jamie Vardy could miss at least two games following his red card at the weekend. Photo: Marc Atkins/Offside.

But, should Leicester start to panic? Well, let’s look at the remaining fixtures for both clubs and compare them to the corresponding fixtures from earlier in the season.

Leicester beat Swansea, drew with Manchester United and then beat Everton and Chelsea for a return of 10 points.

Spurs, meanwhile, drew with West Brom and Chelsea, then beat Southampton and Newcastle for a return of eight points.

If these results were repeated, this would give Leicester City 83 points and Tottenham Hotspur 76 points meaning Leicester would win the title by seven points.

Yes, but what about Jamie Vardy’s ban? A second yellow for a dive against West Ham means he will miss the Swansea game at least, pending the outcome of the FA’s improper conduct charge against the England international for his reaction to ref Jon Moss’s decision, and it could be two or even three games he misses.

Again, according to the experts, without Vardy we might as well just give three points to the opposition. But Leicester aren’t, believe it or not, a one-man team. We have 10 other players that make up the side.

So can Leicester live without Jamie Vardy’s goals?

Let’s look at some facts. Between February 27 and March 19, Claudio Ranieri’s side played five games. Of these, we won four and drew one, remaining unbeaten. Six goals were scored in those games and guess how many Vardy scored? None. Not one. We now have only four fixtures remaining this term.

Convinced? Well, let’s have a look then at the corresponding fixtures of our last five games again. We scored nine goals, of which Vardy scored only two.

If you are still not convinced then just look at Leo Ulloa’s face after he scored the penalty that got us the draw against West Ham in the 94th minute.