The Sky Blues moved up to 14th place after the bore draw with Charlton Athletic and the City manager believes that they can finish a toucher higher.
"I always knew this was going to be a tough game and maybe the reaction from the fans was on the back of my comments after Saturday's result when we lost 4-0 in the worst possible circumstances," Coleman said to the CT.
"When you have got eight players missing you are looking at these two games thinking this is when you need a good squad because you shouldn't really go into them with the same team - you want to change it.
"We are tired and the lads have just been heavily criticised by the manager and everyone who saw the game so they were on a bit of a hiding to nothing.
"I thought they tried to be brave but you could see from some of the passing they were tired and nervous.
"We maybe took the easy option but overall I was happy with them and thought we stuck at it.
"If you look at the league, we are one point from halfway and seven points from the bottom three.
"We need a win to make sure we are safe and maybe a draw from our game in hand to break into the top half.
"This season is still alive but unfortunately we've two spells in the season when we've had a horrific situation with injuries - over Christmas and again over this period.
"I never made that as an excuse on Saturday because there was no excuse for that but we were coming into two games in three days with the same depleted squad.
"I knew it would be a test. I didn't expect pretty football - I wanted a bit more courage when we were defending, which I saw.
"And I said the crowd would expect a lot. They won't be looking at the fact we played 48 hours ago. They will look at the fact that we got beat 4-0 and we never turned up.
"I said they would need something from the players to get them on side but I always knew it would be difficult.
"I was pleased with the players and the top half is still there for us and you have to compare that with fourth from bottom last season."