Stephy Mavididi's missed chance overshadows a bigger problem with Leicester City's front three | Leicestershire Live

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There's no doubt that Stephy Mavididi should have done better with his golden chance against Coventry.

But to view it through a positive lens, at least he was in the box to have the opportunity. Leicester City were more effective at penetrating the 18-yard area on Saturday, and that's good news, because it's not been their forte this season.

Quality in the two boxes can decide a match and City have that quality in their squad, but they're not getting there often enough to make it show.

So far this season, they've had 124 touches in the opposition's penalty area, the same number as Sheffield Wednesday and fewer than 11 other sides in the division.

It's partly because of the players they have on the pitch. One of Jordan Ayew's jobs is to drop deep, receive the ball to feet, hold it up and bring others into play. That means he's less likely to be in the box.

Then, out wide, Mavididi and Abdul Fatawu both prefer to receive the ball to feet and then beat their full-backs, rather than necessarily making off-the-ball darts in the hope of being found by a through ball.

When you have a striker who stays deep and wingers who stay wide, it's no wonder City often lack options in the box. As things stand, Ayew and Fatawu average fewer touches inside the penalty area than right-back Ricardo Pereira. Mavididi did too until Saturday's game. In the whole of the Championship, Ayew ranks 141st for touches in the box per match.

A solution needs to be found. Saturday's goalless draw was the first time that City have drawn a blank and while it didn't feel inevitable, it was always a possibility with the way they've been playing.

City have a better chance of scoring when they create big opportunities, and those big opportunities come from inside the 18-yard box.

Sometimes, City don't break into the area because they choose to shoot from outside it. This is through an instruction from Cifuentes.

He said last month: "Definitely it's something we are trying to encourage (shooting from distance). There is not only a tactical reason for that, but as well an emotional one.

"Especially at home, we are going to face teams that stay deep and stay low and sometimes it's about putting emotional and mental pressure on finishing actions.

"Then sometimes when you play a deep block, there are a lot of legs, a lot of bodies in between you and the goal so every deflection is a nightmare for a goalkeeper.

"I'm happy for the players, especially with the quality of players we have in the squad, to try it."

Cifuentes' logic seems sound, especially as City earned three points at Charlton thanks to a long-range stunner from Fatawu.

But it's not a guarantee. Against Coventry, City did hit the target with shots from range but many of those were comfortable for Carl Rushworth, Sky Blues goalkeeper given plenty of time to adjust to the flight of the ball, even when there was a deflection, as for Wout Faes' effort late in the first half.

It does feel like City need to create more opportunities inside the penalty area, or at least have somebody in there to draw the attention of a defender or two, perhaps providing more space to those on the edge of the box.

There's a couple of ways City might solve such an issue. Perhaps Cifuentes could instruct the most advanced of his three midfielders not to seek passes to feet and instead get beyond Ayew and into the box more frequently.

That was not Bilal El Khannouss's game, while Louis Page is inexperienced in that regard, but it seems like something Aaron Ramsey and Jordan James are more suited to.

James is expected to play deeper, in a box-to-box role, for the majority of his season-long loan, but he filled in for the suspended Ramsey on Saturday and has learned how to crash into the box from his days at Birmingham.

He was disappointed not to take one such chance in the second half on Saturday.

James told the club: "I have to score. I live on arriving late in the box. I've scored quite a few goals doing it, so not being able to convert it is annoying. I work on it a lot in training."

With a little more encouragement and a little more settling-in time, perhaps James or Ramsey will be able to excel in that area.

The other option is to put Ayew in the number 10 position and start with Julian Carranza or Patson Daka ahead of him. It's how City have often played at the ends of matches, but not yet from the start.

Like Mavididi, Carranza also had a chance he may feel he should have done better with, the Argentinian tamely heading into Rushworth's hands.

But again, it's a chance from inside the box, with the Feyenoord loanee showing intelligent movement to peel off his man and meet Fatawu's back-post cross.

At the moment, the pressure on Mavididi and Carranza to convert those kinds of chances is higher because City have fewer of them.

In each of the past eight seasons, the Championship's top scorers have finished in the top three. If City want to get the goals to give them the best shot of promotion, then they need to build on that slight improvement from Saturday and start to get more players on the ball inside the box.