James Meredith has been the City talisman during this remarkable season.

They rarely lose when the cultured left back is in the line-up. Check the stats.

Even in Tuesday’s bitterly-disappointing defeat at Rotherham’s hands, both goals happened after Meredith had been forced off with a whack on the hip.

City average around 1.8 points a game when he plays – that would equate to 83 over a full season and guaranteed automatic promotion. And that doesn’t include the seven wins and a draw from eight cup outings.

But Meredith still feels he should have done better – certainly off the pitch. His ten-week absence with glandular fever gave him plenty of time to re-evaluate the way he was living his life away from football and burning the candle at both ends.

He said: “I felt like I’d let myself and the team down as well as the fans.

“Getting ill is down to the luck of the draw. It can’t be helped.

“But I also felt I wasn’t living to 100 per cent health-wise. I was going out enjoying myself and things like that.

“Now I’m fully committed and focused. I’ve realised that health is the most important thing.”

Meredith admits he wasn’t the only one who needed a shake to refocus. When Phil Parkinson called a team meeting the day after City’s 4-1 loss at Exeter last month, the manager did not mince his words.

Meredith, who is hoping to be fit to face Burton, added: “He basically put a rocket up us. It was very serious.

“It’s just natural for players to get complacent sometimes when they’ve had a ‘warrior’ season like we have with getting to the League Cup final.

“We’ve already achieved something special but now we want to go again.

“You’ve got everything here. You’ve got the stadium, you’ve got the fans, you are looked after brilliantly with the staff.

“Everything is in place and all it needs is a team to put it all on the line on the pitch.

“All the injuries came back and we’ve all had this desire from then on to really go forward. We’re nearly there, but not yet, but we know we can do this.”

The Australian watched the Swansea showpiece from the sidelines while he was recuperating and said it was tough not to be involved.

“I didn’t really feel a full part of it because I wasn’t out there on the pitch.

“It was very strange, especially because I’d worked so hard before then. But I was battling glandular fever and when it gets you, it really knocks you for six.”

Meredith completed a Wembley double a year ago as a York player and believes it can happen again.

“It’s very similar. With York we went to the FA Trophy final at Wembley and then went on to get there in the play-offs.

“Now we’ve had the League Cup final and fingers crossed we can do the same.

“But it’s a very difficult time of the year. You’ve got the teams desperately trying to stay up, the ones at the top trying to push on and even those in the middle who just want to make things hard and spoil your season.

“The pitches haven’t fully recovered because of the weather so the football can be ugly. But I think the team have the right mindset.”