Football
ESPN staff 8y

Leicester's Jamie Vardy 'never dives' - manager Claudio Ranieri

Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri has said Jamie Vardy "never dives" despite the striker being dismissed for simulation in his side's late 2-2 draw against West Ham United.

Vardy, who opened the scoring, was give his marching orders for a second yellow card in the second half after referee Jon Moss ruled he dived under a challenge from Angelo Ogbonna.

Moss then awarded the Hammers an 84th-minute penalty when Wes Morgan tangled with Winston Reid in the box.

He gave Leicester their own spot kick deep in injury time and Ranieri declined to hit out at Moss but insisted Vardy did not dive.

"What changes? It's 2-2. Nothing changes. Never have I spoke or will speak about the referee,'' he said.

"He ([Vardy] never dives. He's always good. He's very fast, and at this speed, if you touch even a little then [you may go down]. But it's OK. I always speak with the players about our performance and our performance was good.

"Also, it was better with 10 v 11, very close, when we conceded the second goal, my players wanted to draw and it was unbelievable, fantastic. Amazing.''

West Ham boss Slaven Bilic refused to criticise Moss but insisted he was fooled into giving Leicester their point-saving penalty.

The 10-man Foxes increased their lead at the top of the Barclays Premier League to eight points after Leonardo Ulloa's injury-time spot kick rescued a 2-2 draw.

The hosts recovered after conceding twice in a breathless final six minutes to Andy Carroll's penalty and Aaron Cresswell's stunning volley.

Ulloa scored after Carroll brought down Jeff Schlupp in stoppage time, but while Bilic sympathised with Moss, he insisted he was wrong.

He said: "I'm not eagle-eyed, I'm not an ex-referee, I'm not Howard Webb, I'm a football coach and I don't want to talk about that.

"On the contrary I would like to say it's hard for him. Not only here but here you have 32,000 people screaming at every contact in the box, every long ball in the box. If it's for the home side it's a penalty or handball.

"If it's in the other box it's cheat, dive or whatever. It's hard, it's extremely hard for him and the game went like crazy and they were losing and so it was extremely hard for him.

"It's easy now to say that the refs shouldn't get influenced by the fans. On paper it is easy to say that. Actually it's real life. Of course it's not a penalty.''

Second-placed Tottenham will close the gap to five points if they beat Stoke on Monday.

Information from the Press Association was used in this report.

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