Liverpool bored their way to another draw at the Walkers Stadium on Sunday. But Gerard Houllier once again blamed the referee and refused to acknowledge that the home sides contribution to the game as we clung on to the coveted fourth spot.
This was out first visit to the Walkers Stadium since they moved from the decrepit Filbert Street. It was a welcome improvement on the old venue and just a few hundred yards away, but on the downside it is another faceless bowl with very little room on the concourse, packed bogs at half time and overpriced crap quality food.
Houllier made some changes from the other night's woeful showing in Marseille, with Baros returning to the side in place of Owen and Traore surprisingly replacing Riise, who didn't even make the bench.
It seemed a bit harsh on the Norwegian, who hasn't done too badly since he got back into the side, whilst the real culprit of the UEFA Cup exit, Biscan, retained his place.
Another change was Cheyrou for Murphy as Houllier continues to try and satisfactorily fill the right midfield berth.
What Dave refers to as the once a game 'Igor Moment' happened as early as the ninth minute when he got in Dudek's way but luckily Dickov failed to capitalise.
The first half was very disappointing on the whole, with most of the chances for either side coming from set pieces. On 21 minutes we had a free kick in a great position after a foul on Heskey but Gerrard struck it straight at the wall.
The nearest we came to breaking the deadlock came in the 40th minute when Gerrard shot from distance and Walker pushed it wide, with many of the Reds fans thinking it had gone in.
Just after this Hamman tested Walker from distance and nearly deceived him with an awkward bounce, as we finally began to realise that he is slightly suspect at long shots.
Leicester created some good chances for themselves during the first half, but were very wasteful. Ferdinand shot straight at Dudek after breaking clear and Bent blazed high over the bar after shaking off the challenge of Carragher.
We began the second half quite brightly, maybe because Houllier had actually gone and given a team talk this time instead of racing to the television gantry.
Cheyrou had a good effort from 25 yards go just wide and Kewell got himself into a good position but shot across the face of goal. On the whole though Kewell was very disappointing and is a pale shadow of the player he was in the autumn. If he was French, he'd be getting a lot more stick than he is.
Leicester began to get back into it and Dudek, who was otherwise faultless, fluffed a low shot but Carragher managed to clear before Heath got to it. A few moments later he made amends with a good save from a Thatcher free kick after Hamman had committed a foul on the edge of the box.
Midway through the second half Murphy came on for Cheyrou and added a bit of an edge to our attack. Cheyrou didn't stink the place out, but he has gone way off the boil since his brief renaissance of January.
The right of midfield is an area we have to address, with Smicer, Diouf, Murphy and Cheyrou all having failed to claim the position for themselves.
Murphy's first contribution was a beautiful flick to Baros who found himself trough near the edge of the six yard box. Unfortunately he hesitated and seemed to think of laying off to Heskey before tamely hitting the ball to Walker.
We almost paid for this when Biscan failed to deal with the ball and let in Dickov, but Dudek saved well.
Baros was replaced by Pongolle with seven minutes left, a substitution that was widely booed. Baros had needed to be carefull though, having been booked for dissent after being caught offside,
Just after this he took a foul throw and had words with the referee again, so it may have been for the best. Houllier hadn't been too pleased with the offside either and spent much of the game remonstrating with the fourth official.
He was far more animated than he normally is, in fact given his recent comments about referees getting managers the sack I think it'd be a great idea to use him as the subject of a fly on the wall type documentary like they did on Graham Taylor.
Pongolle didn't have much time to make any impact, his only real contribution being an overhead kick that went way over the bar. The last action of the game came deep in injury time, when Freund crossed and Izzet completely missed his kick with the goal gaping.
Had it gone in it probably would have been harsh on us, but not necessarily undeserved for Leicester who put in a gutsy performance. Houllier's assertion that we dominated the match was a little over the top, but given how much time he spent arguing with officials he can't have seen much of it.
The draw means we have now played all the bottom six away from home and beaten just one of them. Leicester have won just two at home all season, conceding four to United and Chelsea and five to Villa, but Houllier still thinks 0-0 wasn't a bad result.
He told lfc.tv he was satisfied and reeled out the old excuse that the players were tired after a European game. Last time we played Leicester away from home we beat them 4-1 a few days after going to Kiev. How times change.
Team: Jerzy Dudek; Jamie Carragher, Stephane Henchoz, Sami Hyypia, Djimi Traore; Bruno Cheyrou (Danny Murphy), Didi Hamann, Steven Gerrard, Harry Kewell; Milan Baros (Florent Sinama-Pongolle), E*ile H*skey:
