Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay believes a "marginal" offside call against striker Kenny Miller could have been a turning point in their fortunes during Saturday's 2-1 Championship defeat at Leicester City.

In first-half stoppage time, with the Bluebirds having just fallen behind to a Paul Gallagher penalty, Miller coolly lobbed the ball over the advancing Kasper Schmeichel in the Leicester goal only for the strike to be scrubbed out.

Miller had been flagged offside as he ran on to new boy Haris Vuckic's headed flick and Mackay said: "It looked marginal and it could have made the difference.

"It made it a bigger blow to have it ruled out for offside just after we had conceded a penalty."

However, the Bluebirds manager admitted his side, who had been unbeaten in their last nine away games, paid the price for allowing City to build on a good start to the game when they dominated the opening stages to take a deserved first-half lead.

He said: "We didn't come out of the blocks in the way I thought we would and it didn't help losing one of our main players so early on to injury (Aron Gunnarsson after six minutes).

"We were also playing against a good team and we didn't get close enough to them in the first half, so they were always a threat.

"They are a good team with a fantastic squad and a good manager and we had to make sure that we matched them and we didn't do that until the second half.

"I thought we competed better after the break until a fantastic free-kick from Paul Gallagher. I've seen him score those type of goals before."

Mackay said he was impressed with Leicester, and added: "At the start of the season, you would expect them to be up there but then there was a change of manager at the club, but I think they could still be up there."

Mackay's team have now taken just one point from three games since booking their spot in the Carling Cup final against Liverpool next month, but the Bluebirds manager dismissed suggestions that a Wembley appearance is becoming a distraction.

"I must have been asked this question a dozen of times in the past few days but it doesn't look that way to me," he said.

"The players have been professional in preparing for games and thought of nothing other than the next game in front of them and we have to get back on it in our next one against Peterborough tomorrow night."