Nahki Wells is urging City to have another serious crack at the Capital One Cup next season.

The draw for the first round takes place this morning and all eyes will be focused on last term’s losing finalists.

As they prepare for life in League One, City could be forgiven for playing down the significance of the knock-out contest after that historic Wembley run.

Starting from scratch again in the competition is a long way removed from those heady nights against Wigan, Arsenal and Aston Villa and stepping out at the national stadium to tackle Swansea.

Hot-shot Wells admitted that those cup exploits were an inevitable distraction at times last season. But with promotion eventually secured through the play-offs, he will be eager for the Bantams to chance their arm again.

Wells said: “If we were still in League Two, then it might have been better to get out (the cup) early and focus on winning promotion.

“But now we’re in League One, then I’m sure we’ll all be ready to give it a go again.

“There won’t be many players who have achieved what we have, making it to a major cup final and then coming back to League Two standard the following week. It was new to all of us and a learning curve for everyone.”

Wells felt that readjusting to league matters after the enormous highs of taking Premier League cup scalps took its toll. But City shook off the disappointment of being thrashed 5-0 in the final to relaunch their campaign, losing only three of their last 18 games to return to Wembley three months later with an emphatic victory over Northampton.

The 26-goal striker said: “There were no excuses but I think there was a bit of a case that we were not winning in the league at times because we were looking forward to big cup games.

“One day we were playing Arsenal, then the next it was a league game. You went from a crowd of 25,000 back down to 10,000 – or even 1,500 if we were playing away.

“It does bring you back down to earth and nobody had been through that before.

“The management and staff drilled it into us that the league was our main focus and everyone was rotated per match. But it was tough on the mental side for a while.

“We learned from it that you have to play with the same strong mentality whether you are playing a major Premier League team in the cup or somewhere in League Two. If we didn’t give 110 per cent like we did against Arsenal, then it wouldn’t work.”

City are the first finalists since Birmingham in 2001 to start the following season in the opening round. But despite going all the way to Wembley, they are not seeded because of their league position.

So City, who beat Notts County at this stage last year to begin their epic run, will face either Championship or League One opposition in the regionalised draw. The tie will follow the season-opener in the week beginning August 5.

The eagerly-awaited fixture list for City’s return to League One is released on Wednesday.