With the Sky Blues back in action this weekend Mark Robins gave a brief review of what his side have done over the international break ahead of the trip to South Yorkshire.
City play Sheffield United tomorrow at 12:30 pm and Robins expects his players to be in a good place having had time to recuperate after their strong start to the Championship season.
“I think it (the international break) can be useful because you can get the fatigue levels back but its generally used for more of a rest time for the first week and although we don’t have the whole time off, we do train, we have a block of days off which you don’t tend to normally have.” Explained Robins.
“The fact now is we’ve had quite a busy period up to this point, obviously 17 league games played then the six that come next, apart from this week where we’ve got a three-game week, you’ve got a week’s grace between games which is helpful too.
“So it can be helpful in a number of ways, one to get some work into players but also it allows them to get some rest into them as up to this point we have performed to a high level and picked up a brilliant amount of points so far then whatever we can do in the next block of six games.
“They will be tough; we’ll have to fight for every point as you normally do and these games coming up are against sides that people fancy in terms of achieving something this season and they’ll be absolutely challenging as they always are.”
Turning to the game, the Sky Blues will be looking for their second successive win in Yorkshire after last month’s victory at Hull, but Robins expects a tough test from Slavisa Jokanovic’s side, who were among the early season favourites to bounce back following their relegation from the top flight last term.
“Tomorrow’s game is obviously the start of that run, and it is a tough game at Bramall Lane but it’s a brilliant place to go.
“It is always a good atmosphere and you’ve got the Sky cameras there as its the early kick off and our supporters will go there in huge numbers as well and I think it will make for a really good game.
“Obviously they have come down after a couple seasons in the Premier League and were on an unbelievable journey under Chris Wilder before Slavisa came in but they are a team packed full of good players so it’ll absolute be a challenging game but those are the ones you want to be involved all of the time and what you are in the Championship for.”
There are a number of shared links and familiar faces between the two sides, which Robins highlighted, and he thinks it adds an extra dimension to an already exciting match up.
“You’ve got to take each game in isolation as clearly they have got good players.
“I think their performances have actually been ok and been a little bit unfortunate from time to time, but they’ve got good players throughout the side, some of whom we know.
“I know Oliver Norwood obviously; he’s played for Coventry and he played for me at Huddersfield but I think he’s suspended tomorrow.
“John Fleck we know really well, Dave McGoldrick is there and there is a lot of players that we know.
“Simon Moore has obviously just come from Sheffield United, so he’s got a real connection there and Kyle McFadzean is the same going back to his boyhood team, so it’ll be a good game for all of us.
“There is a lot of connections but also it’s a tough game, it’s on Sky TV, it will be really well supported and a game we can look forward to.”