Burnley came from behind to pick up their first points this year against an oddly unconvincing Leicester, who have lost two games in a row to opponents from the bottom half of the table.

Brendan Rodgers’ team started well enough but in the second half in particular found Nick Pope an unbreachable last line of defence. The Burnley goalkeeper saved his side on at least three occasions, most notably in the 66th minute when he kept out a Jamie Vardy penalty that would have put Leicester 2-1 in front.

“Nick didn’t have a ridiculous amount to do but when he was called on he made some big saves,” Sean Dyche said. “We’d lost our previous four games and it’s not easy when you go a goal down but we showed our character and it’s great to get back to winning ways.”

Rodgers was annoyed about the winning goal – “their desire to score was greater than our desire to stop it” – but conceded Pope had been the key performer. “We didn’t take our chances and a lot of that was down to the goalkeeper,” he said. “He’s a big unit, he blocks a lot of the goal off and he made some amazing saves.”

Leicester could have taken the lead in the opening minute but for the Burnley-born Harvey Barnes shooting rather tamely at Pope. As soon as James Tarkowski sliced a clearance Leicester sent men streaming forward, and it was apparent from that early stage that if they were allowed to get anywhere near the Burnley penalty area James Maddison’s passing and Vardy’s movement would cause problems.

After surviving a couple more scares from those two players Burnley were doing a good job of keeping Leicester safely pinned back in their own half until they were caught unprepared just before half-time. Dennis Praet dispossessed Jack Cork on the halfway line, bringing down the Burnley man as he did so, but while Cork and several of his teammates expected a free-kick Anthony Taylor waved play on and allowed Barnes to surge towards goal. With what remained of the Burnley defence retreating it was a relatively straightforward task for the winger to take the ball round Ben Mee and shoot past Pope.

Jamie Vardy reacts after his penalty is saved by Nick Pope. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images

When the second half commenced it produced enough goalmouth action in the first few minutes to banish memories of a featureless first half. Praet seemed certain to score when Maddison and Barnes found him a way into the penalty area, only for Pope to dive to his right to get a good hand to a well-struck shot. Then Burnley came down the field for Chris Wood to head over the bar from Charlie Taylor’s cross, before Maddison almost scored at the other end with a shot from just outside the area.

With Ashley Barnes out injured, Wood’s aerial ability appeared to be Burnley’s best hope of pulling a goal back, though when the equaliser arrived just before the hour it was Mee who met Dwight McNeil’s corner with a header. Kasper Schmeichel got a hand to the ball but could do no more, allowing Wood to pounce for a close range tap-in.

No sooner had Burnley regained parity than they threatened to throw it away again when Mee was adjudged to have fouled Barnes in the area. The defender was at least guilty of a messy challenge that got nowhere close to the ball, and VAR backed the referee’s decision to award a spot-kick. Pope came to his side’s rescue again by diving to his left to reach the penalty with Ricardo Pereira shooting narrowly wide from the rebound.

If it was unlike Vardy to fail from 12 yards, it was even stranger to see him pass up a perfect invitation from Kelechi Iheanacho a few minutes later, running behind the Burnley defence to reach a superbly weighted pass but managing to find Pope’s chest instead of the usual target.

The goalkeeper deserved credit for standing tall and his third notable save was followed almost immediately by Ashley Westwood’s winner, the midfielder latching on to an ineffective clearance from Jonny Evans to score for the first time at Turf Moor.

For showing more fight and purpose than their opponents in the second half it was probably what Burnley deserved, though without Pope’s penalty save it might have been very different.