The question felt a little mischievous, perhaps slightly unfair in some respects, yet the league table continues to make such good reading for Leicester City that it has probably got to the stage where it is not unreasonable to ask Claudio Ranieri whether the season would now be considered a failure if they ended up finishing outside the top four.

As ridiculous as that would have sounded back in July, when Ranieri was unveiled as Nigel Pearson’s replacement and Susan Whelan, the club’s chief executive, asked the fans to trust their judgement because the Italian’s appointment was greeted with such a mixed response, the reality is that Leicester have put themselves in a fantastic position to play Champions League football next season.

This convincing victory over a desperately disappointing Stoke side, courtesy of goals from Danny Drinkwater, Jamie Vardy and Leonardo Ulloa, lifted Leicester back to the Premier League summit, yet arguably much more important for Ranieri and his players was the fact that they have now opened up a 10-point lead over fifth-placed Manchester United. In other words, a top-four finish is starting to feel like Leicester’s to lose.

“I don’t know,” Ranieri said when the “failure” question was put to him. “For me it’s important to let our fans dream. We will lose, but it’s important, like against Tottenham in the FA Cup, that we fight to the end. I was so pleased that we were losing 2-0 but Kasper Schmeichel still tried to score a goal – fantastic! I wasn’t a big champion when I was a player but my character was very, very strong, and I see the team is like my character.”

The other question – and as each week goes by it becomes harder to dismiss it out of hand – is whether Leicester can do the unthinkable and go on to win the title. By the middle of next month that should be a little easier to answer because Leicester play Liverpool at home next and then travel to Arsenal and Manchester City, their closest rivals at the top.

If Leicester were to come through those three fixtures in decent shape – and it is a big if – Gary Lineker may start to regret that promise he made to present the first Match of the Day show of next season in his underpants should his former club be crowned champions.

For many people the expectation is that Leicester will fall away and something resembling the old order at the top of the table will be restored, yet that view has been pedalled for months now and Ranieri’s players are quietly enjoying the fact that they continue to upset the odds.

“We are top of the league and it is a huge achievement for this club,” said Drinkwater, who set up Vardy’s goal as well as scoring his first in the Premier League. “The points are proof we deserve to be there. If anyone doubts us still it is up to them – as long as we keep proving them wrong. There has not been much negative stuff around us this season, but the boys will talk about it if a team or whoever has been talking badly of us. Then we will be the first ones looking to put it right.”

Any suggestions that Vardy and Riyad Mahrez had lost their way were certainly put to bed on a day when the England international scored his first goal in eight matches and the Algerian was back to being the player that bamboozles defenders, no more so that when he delightfully nutmegged Philipp Wollscheid before Ulloa scored Leicester’s third.

Stoke were unable to cope with the intensity of Leicester’s play, in particular in the second half, when the home team attacked and pressed so aggressively. “I knew exactly how they were going to play but stopping it happening is more difficult,” said the Stoke manager Mark Hughes. “This is a difficult place to come, they have players in good form who are enjoying their football and they have that threat and that ability to take chances when they create, which is the difference.”

The challenge for Stoke now is to get this result out of their system before Tuesday night’s Capital One Cup semi-final second leg at Liverpool, where Hughes hopes that his captain Ryan Shawcross will be fit to play despite his captain limping off against Leicester with a back problem.

“We can’t dwell too much on this match,” Hughes said. “We’ll pick the bones out of it like we always do but we must make sure we can step up now and go again. It’s a great game for us, it is a cup semi-final for goodness sake, and if we can’t get up for that there’s something wrong somewhere, so I anticipate it will be a completely different performance on Tuesday.”

Man of the match Danny Drinkwater (Leicester)