JAMIE Cureton loves scoring against Southampton - and hopes tonight's match at St Marys will re-ignite his goalscoring form.

Last season Curo bagged three goals against the Saints while playing for Colchester on his way to scooping the golden boot award as the Championship's top scorer.

In August the 32-year-old marked his return to Carrow Road with a brace against the south coast side- his first league game for Norwich after an 11-year absence.

And now Cureton, who notched another double at St Mary's in a 2-1 win for the Us last March, is hoping to end his current six-game goal drought tonight (kick off 7.45pm - live commentary on CanariesWorld).

"They've been a good team for me," he said. "I scored three goals against them last year and I've obviously got two against them this year. They have been a lucky side.

"That was early part of the season when we thought everything was rosy and we thought we would be flying along and since then there've been a lot of changes. They are a team I enjoy playing against and if we can get the result we got earlier in the season it would be great."

Cureton has been one of the guilty parties in front of goal in recent games, with City struggling to convert the numerous chances they have been creating in matches. The misses have been costly for a Norwich side who, despite remaining unbeaten in nine games, can point to a number of dropped points, particularly the draws against Leicester, Charlton and Crystal Palace and the cup exit against Bury.

"It's just been one of those seasons so far where I haven't had a clean run of scoring every week," said Cureton, unable to say why the goals have been harder to find since re-joining the Club where he began his career.

"It's been on and off. That's been a bit disappointing. It affects me at the time. I get very frustrated and annoyed. I know I should be scoring them and then it's a case of 'right, I want to get to the next game as quickly as possible'. Once the game is over, I'm all right and tend to go into the next game thinking I can score again. So I'm one of those that's frustrated at that moment, as I think everyone can see. But once I've gone home and got back into training that week I'm gearing up to have another go.

"In general in training we've been crossing, shooting and finishing every day, which is what we do anyway and everybody seems to score in training. It just seems to be one of those things over the last month, a lot of players have had chances and we just seem to miss them or the keepers have saved them so we've just had a period where we've been missing a lot of chances."

Cureton at least goes into the game with some fresh legs, as do the rest of the City squad after a welcome break last week. The shock cup exit at Bury did at least hand the Canaries a blank weekend to re-charge the batteries, with Southampton instead tasked with seeing of the League Two side by a 2-0 scoreline.

Bury pushed the Saints all the way, and Cureton hoped their exertions coupled with a rest for Norwich would hand an advantage to the visitors, looking to continue their climb away from the bottom three under Glenn Roeder.

"We trained over the weekend and had the Sunday off. So obviously we're going to be a bit fresher and hopefully we can make that count.

"You get a few extra days off, but I think you'd rather play. If you win you take the momentum into the game. They've obviously done that and we've had a bit of time off. We might be a bit fresher, but I don't think it's a major difference."