JAMES Meredith admits he faces a scrap to regain his place in City’s indestructible back four.

The Australia international is in full training again after rolling his foot during a recent World Cup qualifier against Bangladesh.

But City’s first-choice left back may have to play second fiddle for now to Greg Leigh, who has played an impressive part in the current surge of clean sheets.

Leigh has featured in the last four of their seven-match run of shut-outs and scored two superb goals in the process.

Meredith said: “It will be interesting to see what happens because Greg’s been playing well.

“He’s a good player with a great attitude and a nice lad as well, which makes it even better.

“But it’s good to have that competition in the team. If you take your foot off the gas, you get replaced.

“We’ve got a lot of depth in a lot of positions, not just left back, and in the long run that’s got to put us in the best position possible.”

City were boosted by the early return of James Hanson for Tuesday’s draw with leaders Coventry. Phil Parkinson praised the big striker for pushing himself to play following his ankle injury.

The City boss said: “Hans was very positive and he really wanted to be part of it.

“That’s a great sign for us that those injured players want to get out the treatment room as quickly as possible. It was really Hans who put himself up for it and hopefully he’ll be all right.

“It was a call we made because Hans had done part of the training on Monday.

“I just felt with Jordan (Bowery) that he’d not played for a while and then had 65-70 minutes at the weekend and cramped up in his hamstrings and calves. It would have been a big ask to have played him again.”

City moved into the play-off places and made it ten games unbeaten with the point against the Sky Blues. But Parkinson is already poised for the next challenge against Walsall, who are two points above them in fourth.

He added: “We’re pleased with the way this week has gone so far. It was a great win from us at the weekend (at Scunthorpe) and it set us up for Tuesday.

“You could feel it was so eagerly-anticipated by the supporters of both teams and sets of players. We’ll always go out to get all three points but we’ll gladly take one.

“We’ve crept in the top six but we’ve got to be ready for Saturday. We have to go to Walsall really committed again because that desire is so important.”