Boss Kieran McKenna says it’s clear Town are better prepared for the Championship than they were when they won promotion from League One two years ago.
The Blues made a remarkable climb from League One to the Premier League in two seasons but this year have found the leap one too big to bridge and next year will be back in the Championship again.
"I think that's clear,” McKenna said when asked whether the club is more prepared now for the Championship than it was following promotion from League One. "Again, there's time for answering these questions down the line. I'm sure the lads who will be here in the summer will fire plenty of those.
"We went up to the Championship with, you can say, pretty close to the same squad as got promoted from League One, and we got 96 points.
"That was an incredible achievement. Next year will be different. It's a different context of the season. It's a different challenge going into it as a newly relegated team and everything that brings.
"The way that it was done last year, I don't think will be done again in terms of how much that group achieved. You can, I think, reasonably say overachieved.
"Next year will be a completely different challenge. It will be an exciting and positive one to take on, and we'll deal with that as it comes. To be honest, at the moment, it's Everton and Brentford. Trying to find a way to compete as well as we can on Saturday and then try and finish in the high end the last three.”
Asked what he can take from the next four games with regards planning for next season, he added: "I don't think it's so much about that, to be honest. It's a different competition, a different level. There'll be changes in the group next year, starting this year, and the summer is a reset.
"It's not necessarily about that. It's more about there are four games left in the first season back in the Premier League for 22 years.
"We want to finish as strong as we can, especially for our supporters with the support that we've had, we want to do that justice with the efforts that we put on the pitch.
"I know for the players on an individual level they're all desperate to do as well as they can, they all want to get as many minutes as they can, and they all want to compete as well as they can.
"The motivation is high, but it's more about finishing the season as well as we can. We'd like to be in a stronger position in terms of availability to be honest.
"We've had a few challenging weeks on that and we'd really like to feel in a position to be firing on all cylinders and have a real swing at it. That's been a test to get to that level, but that's what we're going to try and do over the next few weeks and finish as well as we can.”