Kyle McFadzean is “looking forward” to the Sky Blues Sky Bet Championship clash against Queens Park Rangers on Friday night.
The defender hopes City can claim their first league win of the season in front of the Sky Sports cameras, having been unlucky in defeat to Bristol City last weekend.
Fadz was disappointed to have conceded from a set-piece in Saturday’s season opener but took a lot of positives from the performance at Ashton Gate.
McFadzean said: “It was nice to get the first game out of the way, but we’re looking forward to Friday night, we were a bit unlucky on Saturday but we can’t dwell on that now, we’ve just got to move on and hopefully get our first win on Friday night.
“It’s not like us to concede from a corner, we were really strong last year from set-pieces, we were disappointed with that, hopefully we can carry that on from last year and stay strong, we’ve had words and tried to adjust things, but we’ve been really strong in that area so we’re not going to change much.
“I definitely think playing out the rest of the season helped them a little bit, they’ve not had a long break, we had six months without a proper game, and it showed a little bit near the end of the game.
“We definitely took a lot of positives out of the game, we gave them two goals, we played really well and probably should have been two or three up at half time, but in the Championship, if you give them one chance, they score and that’s what happened in the second half.
“I think QPR have got a really good team together this year, they’ve brought in some really good players, I think they’ll do well this year and if we finish above then we’ll have a really good season.”
The 33-year-old feels that despite only coming up from Sky Bet League One last season, the Sky Blues might surprise a few teams this term and push for a place in the top half of the table.
“Every game is a big game in the Championship, we’re looking forward to it, you’ve got to test yourself against the best, we’ve got a good enough squad to surprise some teams this year, we want to get in the top half.
“People are saying it’s going to be tough, but we’ve got to back ourselves, we’ve got a good manager, really good coaches, a good group of lads and a young squad, most of them should be playing in the Championship anyway, if not all of them.
“All the teams that tend to go up have a goalscorer in their squad, it’s not just about one player though, goals need to come from all over the pitch, even defenders need to get a few goals to get promoted, we can’t just depend on Matty.
“We’ve been working on trying to be more of a goal threat a lot, I think we’ve looked quite threatening from corners in pre-season and on Saturday, we were very unlucky not to score from a set-piece last weekend.”
This weekend marks the start of pilot event matches in the EFL, with 1,000 fans allowed to attend eight matches across the EFL schedule and McFadzean hopes the Sky Blues faithful can return to matches soon.
“The fans are massive to us, they’re the best fans I’ve played for, they’re second to none, it would be massive to get them back in, not just for us, but for them as well to come and watch the games, it’s not the same watching it at home, hopefully we’ll have them back soon.
“You tend not to get too carried away by the crowd anyway, when I’m playing I don’t really notice they’re there, except for the last 15 minutes if the fans are raring you on to keep going, when you get tired it pushes you on”.