Patson Daka's double saw Leicester City salvage a point in their Championship relegation fight as they drew with Preston North End.

The Foxes - who have won just once in their past 14 games - remain third from bottom of the table after Portsmouth secured a late draw at Norwich City.

Daka was gifted a fourth-minute opener when he pounced on Andrew Moran's weak backpass and side-footed the ball home.

Moran made amends shortly before the break when his effort came off the bar and crept over the line before Ben Whiteman's header from a corner made it 2-1 just before half-time.

Leicester pushed for an equaliser after the break but Oliver Skipp, Harry Winks and Luke Thomas were all thwarted by Preston goalkeeper Daniel Iversen.

And they were rewarded when Pol Valentin's poor touch gave Daka a chance on the edge of the box and the Zambia forward fired into the top corner with nine minutes left.

The point sees Preston slip to 15th place with six games to go - 13 points above the drop zone and 14 off the play-off places.

Moran was at the centre of the action in the opening five minutes - he was inches away from getting on the end of Lewis Dobbin's cut-back after 57 seconds before his poor pass back to Iversen allowed Daka to nip in and coolly slot in from the edge of the box.

The goal visibly lifted Leicester's players - especially Daka whose enthusiastic pressing kept Preston's defenders on their toes.

The Leicester striker had a decent chance for a second 12 minutes from the break when he controlled Stephy Mavididi's lofted pass and forced Iversen into a fine low save.

But Moran was relieved to get his side back in it. Dobbin broke after Leicester lost the ball in midfield and found his team-mate who fired in off the bar from 12 yards, with replays showing the narrowest of gaps between the ball and the line.

Leicester's defensive nervousness - which has been a problem all season - was there for all to see when centre-back Whiteman put North End ahead with a far-post header that looped into the net.

Abdul Fatawu, Winks and Daka had efforts early in the second half as they began to control the possession but they struggled to find a way past Iversen.

Preston's Danish keeper was excellent as he made himself big to stop Skipp when he broke through before palming away a Thomas effort from the edge of the box.

But the Foxes - who won the Premier League 10 years ago - got the goal their pressure deserved as Daka's industry was rewarded with an excellent 18-yard strike that went in off the underside of the bar.

The hosts could have won it in seven minutes of stoppage time as Fatawu fired just wide while Winks saw a low effort from the edge of the box deflected off target.

Leicester City manager Gary Rowett told BBC Radio Leicester:

"You have to look at the performance overall, and I would say for 99% of it the performance was outstanding. I really do think that.

"We were excellent, we didn't give too many chances away, we score a very good goal and press nice and early and look really comfortable in the first half.

"But of course I've said it many times before, and it's been a bit of an Achilles heel where we can be playing fantastically well and we just give two goals out of nothing.

"The first one's a throw-in that breaks down and we let them break on us.

"Then the second one's a set-piece where we give the ball away in the run-up to it and then it's a soft goal to concede.

"I know Preston will say they made two mistakes for our goals, but when you've had 28 shots and the keeper's made countless saves, you would always feel as though you should have won the game."

Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom told BBC Radio Lancashire:

"We created all four goals.

"Regardless of the position they've got some real good individual players and we defended our box well.

"They got in behind us once where Dan makes that save where we get things wrong, apart from that it's shots from the edge of the box.

"For us to give them two goals the way we did, to just get that point is really, really frustrating."