Leicester, in their final appearance of the year, again underlined that they have forgotten how to win at home. Yesterday's game contained a host of special memories as Sheffield Wednesday, in common with other recent visitors from the lower half of the table, found frailties at Filbert Street.

It was a worthy effort from Wednesday, who had been full of good counter-attacking intentions at the start, held themselves together after losing both a goal and a defender to a red card, and still had sufficient spirit and recovery powers to strike back with four minutes remaining.

It was also a triumph for Ron Atkinson who thought and rethought ways to prise something from the game with his depleted resources. The Wednesday manager replaced one substitute, Wayne Collins, with another, Ritchie Humphreys, in a last throw of the dice and it was he who volleyed a diagonal ball over Robbie Savage for Andy Booth to chest down and aim an equaliser into the far corner of the net.

A marvellous opening 20 minutes, with near misses at either end, climaxed with Steve Guppy twive being denied after an incisive link-up with Ian Marshall. Before that Kevin Pressman's neck muscle had been working overtime as crosses fizzed into his six-yard box from left and right.

It may have been that pressure that contributed to the goalkeeper losing hold of Guppy's 28th-minute header after Muzzy Izzet's charge into the penalty area. Pressman first parried the ball and then palmed it over the line.

Despite that setback, Wednesday had shown enough clever use of the ball - consistently achieved by their leggy midfielder Petter Rudi and the pace of their Swedish newcomer Niclas Alexandersson on the right flank - to suggest that the day was not yet over. Alexandersson could have scored twice within the first 15 minutes and a full-length header from Booth drew impeccable reactions from Kasey Kellet. Stefanovic, having been booked for encroachment, was treading a fine line with this referee and an ill-timed hack at savage's ankles earned him his dismissal two minutes before the break.

"I'm heartily sick because that's the best we have played since beating Tottenham in September," lamented Leicester's manager Martin O'Neill. "To be pegged back like that feels as bad as a defeat. We could have won this game 12-2 or 12-3 and I mean that. I said to the players before the start that it's been a fantastic year and let's end it in style but it wasn't to be."