Reeco Hackett feels City's win at Port Vale is yet more evidence of their winning mentality.
Hackett's stoppage-time penalty sealed Saturday's 2-0 win, and the St Lucia international was pleased with the character on show from his team-mates.
He said: "It was never going to be pretty, but we dug deep and came here to win - which is exactly what we did.
"We had a gameplan and knew how they'd set up. It was always going to be scrappy game, but it is a really good result.
"Earlier in the season we struggled in these types of games, but now we've come a long way as a team and are a lot better in these situations. We knew we'd have spells where they had more of the ball, but it was all about how we dealt with them. I thought we managed them well."
Hackett also pointed to the strength in depth, which included young players Jack Moylan and Dylan Duffy coming off the bench as City looked to see the game out.
He added: "The head coach said before the game that it was about the whole squad, and those two came off the bench and gave us a real energy boost. They helped us massively and obviously Dylan won the penalty which secured the points.
"Games like this are when we need the fans, they were behind us throughout and it was great to have that moment at the end with them."