Dickov has to be lifted to play for Scotland this week, just as Manchester City needed to be lifted to get something out of this game. Kevin Keegan's men demonstrated just what staying up means to them when Andy D'Urso wrongly awarded Leicester the penalty.
It resulted in a confrontation between the entire two teams, substitutes, Keegan and the four match officials.
'I prefer to call it a lot of passionate people who care,' said Keegan. 'Micky and I are both passionate managers. A bad decision was made, no doubt about that. Muzzy Izzet handled it and then there was a penalty given.
'We felt aggrieved about that and again a minute later when he didn't give us an advantage when we were clear through. I'd like to think the ref made those decisions honestly. He's not a poor ref but he made two poor decisions.'
The FA may care to take a look at the video to assess if suitable punishment - four bookings - was sufficient for the anarchic behaviour, but it looked uglier than it was.
Even Adams admitted: 'I thought there was a handball in the build-up, so you might say that the luck evened itself out when David saved it. But we haven't had a lot of luck this year and we needed it.'
City stood up to the challenge - nobody more so than James.
'I guess any penalty save at this stage is important but especially when it shouldn't have been given,' he said. 'It was always going to cause a reaction because had we lost it would have put us in a poor position. There has been a lot of talk about crisis meetings and lots of ranting and raving but we have been together as a team. We hurt together.'
The hurting should not last much longer because Keegan's team did enough to win comfortably.
The manager said: 'It's in our own hands. We have two home games and one away and we have to handle it like we did today, although we have to find a little bit of composure. We have enough ability, though today was about standing up and being counted.'
