Mehdi Nafti: Our place is in the Premiership
MEHDI Nafti has revealed that he and none of the Blues team are happy.... to be playing Championship football.
And the Tunisian midfielder said it was no good bemoaning their fate or thinking everything would turn out all right in the end, they had to prove themselves worthy of reclaiming top-flight status.
Blues have made an excellent start to the campaign, with last night's 4-0 Carling Cup win at Wycombe Wanderers making it two victories out of two.
Nafti, who scored his first goal for the club in his 74th game with the Adams Park opener, won't hear that it therefore justifies the promotion favourites tag.
"No, I'm not happy," he shrugged. "I don't think if you asked any player in the squad, he would be happy to play in the Championship.
"Everybody would like to play in the Premiership," he continued.
"But if we are in the Championship this season then it's our fault.
"We can talk about Steve Bruce, the club, we can talk about a lot of things (as the reasons). But at the end of the season, after 38 games, the worst three teams go down and that was the case.
"So there's nothing to complain about. We have 46 games this season, and let's go back to the Premiership because our place is there.
"Of course it hurt our pride. Yet we deserved to go down. You can say 'oh, we were unlucky'. But I don't think you can be unlucky in 38 games.
"You know my philosophy about that. But let's bounce back and give a bit of happiness and joy to the fans and to the city."
The hardest thing, said Nafti, is "that you are not playing against the best players in the country".
"Not playing against Manchester, Liverpool, not testing yourself against the best players," he said. "Championship is Championship, Premiership is Premiership.
"It's probably the most important league in the world and it hurts not to be part of the Premiership this season.
"But we have had two or three months in the holidays to think about it, and we don't think about it any more.
"Probably, when we see the games on Sunday on Sky, Manchester and Liverpool and that kind of thing, it's like 'I would like to be there'.
"Of course I am not going to lie to you. But this season it is going to be Barnsley and Burnley and we have to win those games and to prove to ourselves that our place is in the Premiership.
"And if we can go back, we will try not to make the mistakes we made last season."
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