Dom Hyam is “excited” ahead of the Sky Blues trip to Rochdale in Sky Bet League One this weekend.
The defender helped City move into the automatic promotion places last weekend, keeping a clean sheet and providing an assist in the 2-0 win away at Southend United.
However, despite the excitement, Hyam is wary of letting complacency set in and is fully focused on the trip to Rochdale on Saturday.
The Sky Blues edged out Dale 2-1 at St Andrew’s back in November and Hyam is expecting another tough test at Spotland this weekend.
Hyam said: “We’re all excited, it’s game by game really, we can’t really look at the table, as much as we want to, we’ve got to focus on each game as it comes and not look to far into the future because if we do that we might get complacent.
“It was a tough game, we had quite a few missing that day with Kells and Fadz, but they’re a good team with good players, Ian Henderson is always scoring 15 to 20 goals a season, he’ll be a handful so we’ve got to defend him and keep it tight.
“We’ve got to see what they’re good at and see what they’re not so good at and try and get the points, we have a good analysis team here so we’ll look at that and see how we can exploit their weaknesses and keep their strengths at bay.”
The 24-year-old was delighted to have kept a clean sheet in City’s last outing against Southend which was the Sky Blues sixth shut out in their last nine games in all competitions.
He also thought City dealt with the stormy conditions particularly well and thought their quality told in the second half.
“The clean sheet at Southend was really good, that’s four or five clean sheets in the last six or seven games, we’re working well, and we know we need to do it in the next game as well.
“There’s no point worrying about what we’ve done already, it’s just about the next game and we know that if we keep a clean sheet, we can’t lose the game, that’s the way we look at it.
“It was tough conditions at Southend in the first half, in the storm, it was tough to play out and their press was quite good, but we dealt with that and got through that sticky patch and our quality came through in the second half when the subs came on.
“The high wind makes it difficult to judge the ball, their keeper had a couple of kicks that bounced once and went out for a goal kick, if you don’t know you can’t take a risk.
“It’s just about getting your bearings and getting used to the conditions, sometimes that takes time, we were away from home so we had to keep it tight for a little bit to get their respect, which we did, and our quality showed towards the end.”
City have had a full week to prepare for the trip to Spotland which Hyam believes is important having played at least two fixtures a week for the past five weeks.
“We’ve had Saturday and Tuesday games for about four or five weeks in a row now so it’s good to get that downtime with your friends and family and it’s important to switch off a little bit as well, so I’ve enjoyed a few days off.
“The amount of games hasn’t taken its toll, it’s part of the job, if you want to be a good team you’ve got to play Saturday and Tuesday week in week out and get good results.
“We still take it game by game and it’s still really important to focus on each game as it comes and not look too far ahead, you get used to it really because you don’t really have a choice, you just have to prepare for the next game as you normally would.”
The defender is also closing in on reaching a century of appearances for the Sky Blues and hopes to create more memories with the club this season.
“That would be a good achievement for me, reaching 100 games for the club, hopefully I can get another hundred after that, there’s been some really good memories so far and hopefully I can make a few more along the way.”