Sky Blues boss Mark Robins has labelled this weekend’s clash against Bolton Wanderers as the ‘biggest game of the season’ so far.
City return to League One action after their FA Cup Fourth Round replay with Birmingham City midweek as they welcome the Trotters to St Andrew’s.
The Sky Blues are unbeaten in their last seven games in the league, winning five and drawing two along the way.
Bolton will mark the first of three fixtures in the space of a week and Robins is hoping his side can overcome Keith Hill’s side this weekend and take three points into the midweek game against Portsmouth.
He said: “We’ve got a tough game tomorrow, for me the biggest game of the season because if we can get three points tomorrow it sets us up nicely going into the week.
“We’ve got three games in a week, the first being against Bolton tomorrow and like I said it’s a big game and a huge three points if we can get them.
“It’s been a big change in terms of the players that have gone in there and Keith Hill’s gone in there with Dave Flitcroft and they’ve steadied the ship, and they’ve done more than that because they get a good team together.
“They’ve got a team that play high energy and high intensity and that’s the challenge for us tomorrow playing against them before we go into the rest of the season.
“We know what we are and we know what we’re not and we know what we’re playing against, the opponents that we’ve got coming up are all tough so we just take it a game at a time and this is for me a big game and a chance to try and get the three points against a really good side.
“They’ve got some really good players and a lot of experience in the team, with Chris O’Grady and Luke and Daryl Murphy and Jason Lowe and Nsialas’ coming in from Ipswich and there’s a lot of players in there with a lot of experience.
“Dennis Politic’s a good player and we saw that first-hand against them at their place earlier on in the season with some good young players as well.”
After exiting the FA Cup in the week, the Sky Blues now have seventeen fixtures remaining this season, with Bolton the first.
Robins told how his side are focused on the task in hand in the remaining fixtures and believes the Sky Blues are in a healthy position.
“It’s about the players and what they’re doing, and I think they’ve handled things really well.
“There’s being very little if any problem, they’ve all been brilliant. They’ve all been together, they’ve all been professional, it’s a good dressing room and they’ve worked hard to get to a situation where we are at the moment, in a healthy position with seventeen games to go.
“Everyone’s focused on themselves and each other and what we’re trying to do this season so that won’t change.
“The fact that some young players have gone out on loan helps us as well because that gets them minutes and we’re trying to get everyone to a level where they’re all able to compete if they should be called upon.”