Omer Riza spoke to the press ahead of our return to Sky Bet Championship action against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday afternoon.
The City interim boss began by reflecting on the international break.
"To achieve what they achieved over that block and to pick up the points that they picked up, we all know it was invaluable." Omer began.
"From one point, now we’re at 15, I think they exerted a lot of energy to do so. They had to take a lot on board and towards the back end of it, we felt that.
"The last two games, the two defeats, tiredness crept in I think and also obviously, we just weren’t good enough in certain parts of the games.
"In general, the block was good and they needed that rest to go away, come back in refreshed and ready to go again hopefully."
Saturday's opponents Sheffield Wednesday are currently 15th in the table, having fell to a narrow 1-0 defeat to Sheffield United in their last game before the break.
Omer continued: "From where they were last year to where they are now, there’s a consistent element to the way they play.
"It’s Sheffield Wednesday at the end of the day, it’s Hillsborough, it’s a tough game and it will be a difficult one for us.
"We’re preparing the way we normally do, we want to be creative, we want to cause the opposition problems and we’ve got to be defensively solid.
"We’ve been focusing on that this week and hopefully, we’ll approach the game with the right mindset and have a bit more energy and intensity to try to win the game."
Omer concluded with an injury update on the squad ahead of Saturday's fixture.
"Joe Ralls has trained, he's got through training so he will be in contention to be back in the squad. Sio [Manolis Siopis] and Rubin Colwill trained today. Andy Rinomhota gets back in with us tomorrow.
"Callum Robinson has been training. He's come through well and he'll be in contention to be in the squad as well. Kion Etete had a little setback against Brentford (friendly), so he's been put back a couple of weeks now. He'll be a few more weeks. Aaron Ramsey has picked up a slight problem as well with the injury, so it might be a bit further down the line, we have to wait for the medical staff to clarify on that one."