Promotion hopefuls Middlesbrough had to settle for a point against relegation-threatened Leicester City at the Riverside Stadium.

Caleb Okoli opened the scoring before Riley McGree levelled in first-half stoppage time for the hosts, who have now gone three Championship matches without a win, having previously won six in a row.

A victory would have put second-placed Boro level on points with leaders Coventry City, who will go five points clear of them if they beat Sheffield United on Wednesday evening.

Leicester have drawn both their matches under new boss Gary Rowett, who will be encouraged by their spirited performance.

Okoli gave the visitors a shock lead when he got in front of Boro defender Luke Ayling to head home Divine Mukasa's right-wing free-kick.

But defender Okoli gave the ball away in the build-up to the hosts' equaliser just before the interval.

Boro sprang forward and Hayden Hackney played the ball to the left to Tommy Conway, who pulled it back for McGree to tuck away his third goal in his past four matches.

Leicester had a great chance to regain the lead early in the second half, when Ayling's botched attempt to head away a long ball left Patson Daka one-on-one with keeper Sol Brynn, but the striker headed wide.

Leicester continued to threaten and Abdul Fatawu sent an effort narrowly wide of the far post.

At the other end, Callum Brittain's cross was nudged narrowly wide by David Strelec, Conway fired well over, and veteran keeper Asmir Begovic saved with his legs to deny McGree.

After a recent defeat by Coventry saw the Sky Blues regain top spot from Boro, Kim Hellberg's side have dropped points against two teams battling against the drop, having played out a frustrating goalless draw against Oxford United at the weekend.

They are six points clear of third-placed Ipswich and Hull in fourth, but will be keen to get back to winning ways in their next match, away to Birmingham on Monday.

Leicester, who are at home to Norwich on Saturday, remain third from bottom and are without a win in eight league matches.

But they are just a point behind West Bromwich Albion, the team immediately above them in the table, and their performance suggested they are capable of getting out of trouble under Rowett.

Middlesbrough boss Kim Hellberg told BBC Radio Tees:

"It makes it one loss in the last nine, but of course you want to win games. We weren't good enough to win today.

"From the last two games we created a lot of opportunities but for us now the ball is not going into the net to win it.

"But in those games we have two more points to our tally. We wanted more but that's done, so we have to work from it and keep improving.

"You take points you get at this stage of the season and keep working. We're in an unbelievable position and we will keep working hard to keep it.

"It was two good teams going at each other. They have a lot of quality and we have the same.

"We started well and then we're disappointed at conceding that goal. That breaks a lot of the momentum. You have to defend that free-kick better."

Leicester boss Gary Rowett told BBC Radio Leicester:

"I can only judge them on what I see, and what I've seen is a group of players that are desperate to improve the situation they're in - desperate to do better in the league.

"We've got some really talented players who have shown me in the two games that they can also play with great diligence, do the work-rate, and help each other to track runners and defend the box.

"They've shown a really good mentality so far, but we've got to keep it like that. It's just the start, but it's quite a pleasing start.

"It's a big point. You have to respect the fact that Middlesbrough are where we want to be, and perhaps were expected to be, but we're not - and there are reasons for that.

"I thought we were defensively very good for the most part. We worked a lot on stopping them from playing through us.

"We switched off probably two or three times. One was for their goal and that was a disappointment. Caleb made a mistake but reacted well to it.

"We maybe lost a bit of momentum, but then finished the stronger team. So there was lots to like about the performance."