Substitute Ricardo Pereira struck a fine second-half equaliser as 10-man Leicester denied Oxford a first Championship win of the season in an eventful 2-2 draw at the Kassam Stadium.
The Foxes had to play three quarters of the match a man down after Aaron Ramsey was sent off in the 24th minute.
Will Lankshear fired Oxford into an early lead, which was soon cancelled out by Jordan Ayew.
An own goal from Boubakary Soumare at a corner then gave Gary Rowett’s side a 2-1 lead at the break, only for half-time sub Pereira to fire home an equaliser 10 minutes after the restart.
This was the first meeting between the teams since another 2-2 draw back in April 1994.
And the U’s got just the start they were looking for this time around as Spurs loanee Lankshear slotted in from Michal Helik’s pullback in the ninth minute after goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk could only parry Matt Phillips’ fierce drive.
But the Foxes were back level just four minutes later as Ayew capitalised on a wayward pass from Cameron Brannagan to cut in from the right and drill a shot under Jamie Cumming from eight yards.
However, Oxford were looking threatening going forward, and winger Przemek Placheta was very unlucky to see his superb 25-yard shot over City’s keeper come back off the crossbar.
The game continued to be open and the chances kept on coming – Ramsey forcing a good save out of Cumming with an angled 25-yard drive midway through the half.
Yet less than a minute later and Ramsey was shown a straight red card by referee Ben Toner for scything down Phillips near the touchline.
Bulgaria international Filip Krastev, making his Oxford debut, had a shot deflect wide after a neat one-two with Phillips.
With the extra man, the home side were enjoying good possession, but Leicester still looked dangerous on the break and Stephy Mavididi raced 70 yards through on goal, only for Cumming to save his close-range shot.
Oxford regained the lead a minute before half-time when Ben Davies’ header at a corner deflected into the net off Soumare’s head.
Pereira had replaced Mavididi for the second half, which was just 10 minutes old when the Portuguese took a pass on the right from Abdul Fatawu and finished with a clinical low shot past Cumming.
Both sides went looking for a winner after that but failed to make the most of opportunities.
The managers
Oxford’s Gary Rowett:
“My emotion is one of a bit of frustration – it feels as though we have dropped points – and I don’t want that to cloud all the good bits about today.
“It’s always frustrating when you’ve gone 1-0 up and 2-1 up and they’ve had a man sent off, and you don’t come away with a win.
“But on the back of Coventry where we saw a much-improved performance second half, I thought today we were absolutely excellent first half against a former Premier League side with a lot of Premier League players still there.
“But we made a mistake for the first goal, which gets them back in the game, we go 2-1 up again, with a little bit of fortune, but after a lot of pressure.
“Then it’s just a question of how do you handle the second period of the game?
“They changed formation, tried to play through lots of bodies in the middle, and I think Harry Winks coming on for them and Matty Phillips going off for us made a massive difference to the game and we just lost our way a bit.
“They scored one very good goal, poor from our point of view, and that’s the frustration really because they haven’t had a lot of chances.”
Leicester’s Marti Cifuentes:
“I will never be satisfied with only one point – that’s not in my nature, I want my team to win football games – but obviously it was a difficult scenario after 24 minutes and I’m very pleased after a poor first half with the reaction we showed, and the personality we showed in the second half.
“It was definitely a late tackle from Aaron but I won’t judge here if it was a red card or yellow card, that doesn’t matter. What was clear was that it was unfortunately a very difficult game situation for us.
“Aaron was very, very disappointed – we need to now give him a bit of space. He’s a young guy who has come in with a lot of energy and desire. It was unfortunate what happened with him, but I have full belief that he will be an important player for us.
“We were not good at the start of the game anyway, we conceded the first goal, then we had the capacity to score our goal to get into the game again, but I never felt we were getting the flow.
“Then I felt it was important to get into half-time at 1-1 to make the adjustments we needed, and unfortunately we conceded another – we know Oxford are very good at set plays.
“But then it’s important to highlight the personality and the braveness the players had, to ask for the ball and not just sit deep and wait for things to happen.
“And our second goal was a reflection of that. In my eyes, Oxford had some long-range shots, but in terms of danger in the box, I felt we were the ones who went closer in the second half.”
