CITY defender Gary Doherty is counting on a derby atmosphere at Carrow Road on Saturday to drive the Canaries on to three valuable points against Colchester (kick off 3pm).

Norwich find themselves just outside the bottom three again after a run or results which has seen them wrack-up just one win in eight games.

With just seven matches remaining, City can ill afford to allow that run to continue, with the game against the bottom placed Us suddenly taking on major significance for both sides.

Victory for Geraint Williams' strugglers over promotion chasing Hull this evening could really put the cat amongst the pigeons down at the foot of the table, with the three points moving them to within eight of safety.

And while that would still leave them with a mountain to climb, such a result would really give the Essex side some much-needed momentum leading up to the game with the Canaries, who themselves are just three points outside the drop zone.

It makes the weekend clash a big one for both sides, and Doherty hoped the added dimension of it being an East Anglian derby would lead to a cauldron-like atmosphere inside the ground.

"I hope so," said the 28-year-old, likely to be back in the frame for a first team recall after his substitute appearance in the 2-0 loss at Sheffield United. "We hope Carrow Road will be rocking to make it really intimidating for them, because when we went down to their place it was quite a good atmosphere and obviously it was in front of the cameras too. We got a point down there and we'll be looking for all three at Carrow Road.

"It's massive now. It's going to be built up. It's a six-pointer again. We thought we'd got ourselves out of this position but with the latest results we've been poor, so we're right back in it again. Like I said, it's going to be a six-pointer against local rivals so it's one we're looking forward to."

It was Doherty's header back across goal in injury time at Layer Road in December which forced Danny Granville to put through his own net and earn the Canaries a share of the points in the televised clash.

That win came towards the beginning of a 13-match unbeaten run which pulled Norwich out of the mire and into midtable, with some even suggesting a late push for the play-offs could be on the cards. Such talk has now been well and truly ended by City's latest slump, and Doherty said it was frustrating to find themselves back in the dog-fight at the bottom of the table.

"It is, because at one stage we were looking forward," he said. "But we've had a few bad results with the odd goal going against us and that's disappointing. But we've got a home game now to try and put it right and we're all looking forward to it."

Norwich currently have 46 points, with 52 suggested as the magic number to guarantee safety this season. But with the likes of Leicester picking up surprise wins at places like West Brom, Doherty believed it could be a much higher total this season, with Norwich needing more than just two wins from their final seven matches to stay in the Championship.

"We've got to get as many points as we can," said, plainly and simply. "Two wins? I don't know if that's going to be enough, to be honest. It's only six points. We haven't pencilled in any dead-cert games because you can't do that in this league. Some of the results over the weekend showed that - Leicester winning 4-1. We've just got to take every game on its merit and get as many points as we can.

"When we were on our great run we were getting the odd-goal victory and that's turned against us a little bit. We're getting the odd goal defeats now. But the performances have been good and there's pluses we can take from that and hopefully we can get another good performance and the right result Saturday."