Leicester’s second “mission impossible” suddenly looks all the more fiendish. It is no surprise that the notion, never entirely convincing given Liverpool’s steely excellence, of another title-winning fairytale has come to seem too far-fetched but they might have expected the dream to perpetuate for at least another week. Instead their winning run was halted by a Norwich side who completely deserved their draw and arguably had the better opportunities to win, retaining a threat even when Leicester found some sort of stride after half-time.

Norwich had taken the lead through Teemu Pukki’s latest ice-cool finish and, in a strange way, even the manner of the home side’s equaliser spoke to their afternoon’s frustration. Jamie Vardy had scored in eight consecutive league games, a burst of form in line with that streak of Leicester victories, and thought he had made it nine when he met James Maddison’s corner and saw his header flash into the net via Tim Krul’s hand. But the Norwich keeper had actually made the crucial touch, diverting the ball goalwards when it had been heading wide, and Vardy’s hopes of nearing his 11-game record from 2015-16 disappeared despite a number of subsequent efforts.

“It’s not something we’ve ever spoken about,” Brendan Rodgers said when asked about the receding prospect of challenging Liverpool, now 10 points clear, for first place. “I think everyone else has. The players have been brilliant; it says everything that we’ve drawn a game and everyone’s disappointed. We weren’t quite at our level today but we’ve still managed to get a point.”

They were so far short in the first half that by the interval Rodgers had ripped up his gameplan and turned a narrow 4-3-1-2 formation into a 4-3-3. Norwich were much the better side over the first half-hour, once they had got over an early scare in which Krul fumbled Youri Tielemans’ shot against an upright, and they should have scored when Pukki could not quite make decisive contact with Max Aarons’ delivery after a slick move had sliced Leicester open.

Pukki did get it right in the 26th minute although Rodgers will have been perplexed by the way a simple pass from Tom Trybull cut through their entire midfield, giving Emi Buendía all the space he needed in front of the back four. His slide-rule ball for Pukki was a peach, weighted just well enough to meet the striker’s run past Caglar Soyuncu. The finish, rolled across a rooted Kasper Schmeichel, was customarily outstanding.

It turned out Pukki, who could have scored a winner in the dying minutes had Soyuncu and Ricardo Pereira not made last-ditch challenges when he twice got away, finished the game nursing a broken toe. “He’s from Finland so I’m not too concerned,” said Daniel Farke, who does not expect Pukki to miss any matches and cannot afford him to. Pukki has nine Premier League goals this season and it is hardly outlandish to suggest his smart runs and precise shooting may be the difference between relegation and a successful campaign.

Norwich may need him less if they could kick their habit of undoing so much work with maddeningly simple concessions. Maddison, their former player, may be an outstanding operator at set-plays but his delivery and Vardy’s peeled run were hardly intricate stuff and at that point it seemed Leicester would clear their heads and push on. Immediately after the equaliser Rodgers replaced Kelechi Iheanacho, abruptly ending the forward’s mini-renaissance, and introduced Demarai Gray. Being hauled off in the first half is never a good look and Rodgers insisted it was a tactical move, to facilitate the formation switch, rather than a response to a flashpoint that occurred shortly before Vardy scored.

Norwich felt entitled to receive the ball back when Tom Trybull, aware Buendía was down, knocked it out for a Leicester throw-in. But Iheanacho, failing to get the memo on receiving possession, surged towards the penalty area and was halted only by Christoph Zimmermann’s foul.

Norwich City’s Teemu Pukki fires home to open the scoring. Photograph: Rebecca Naden/Reuters

Now that the danger had passed, half of Norwich’s players piled in furiously on Iheanacho. The mêlée took some resolving, with VAR eventually being deployed to adjudge that Todd Cantwell, who had bent down menacingly towards his prone opponent and appeared to grab at him, did not deserve a red card. Both managers agreed Iheanacho had, as Rodgers said, “totally misread the situation” and it arguably had the effect of stalling Norwich’s dominance.

Vardy hit an upright from the tightest of angles early in the second period but, after threatening to build up a head of steam, Leicester never created enough. They found Norwich resolute, with Ben Godfrey imperious at the back, and Farke could bask in what he felt was their best performance of the season. In his opinion Norwich need to show the initiative of “hoover salesmen” in their fight to stay up and this, he said, counted as one successful transaction.

For Leicester, successive league meetings with Manchester City and Liverpool are now less potential title showdowns than opportunities to assert their top-four credentials. “Perhaps Jürgen [Klopp] has already sent me a message, I’ll check my phone later,” Farke said. Leicester will surely not catch Klopp and company now but, all things considered, any gloom will be minimal.