Norwich City

NORWICH City midfielder Andrew Surman is keen to avoid any upsets when League One side Scunthorpe United come to town in the Capital One Cup second round on Tuesday night.

The Iron overcame Derby County on penalties in the last round after the match finished 5-5 at Pride Park, but Surman is hoping for no such surprises by the time the final whistle blows at Carrow Road.

He told Canaries Player: “Scoring five goals away from home against anyone, let alone from the league above you, is no mean feat, and we know they’re going to be dangerous. 

“We know we need to keep clean sheets, but also that if we’re on top of our game we’ll score goals. 

“We’ll approach it like any other game. We know about their strengths, and also their weaknesses, and we’ll try to exploit those.”

Surman is keen to continue the improvement shown by the side on Saturday, when they responded to a 5-0 defeat to Fulham with a superb performance in a 1-1 draw with QPR at home.

The Canaries also have good recent record against the Iron, having not lost since 1963, and winning 6-0 the last time they both met in the 2010-11 Championship season – Grant Holt and Simeon Jackson netting hat-tricks.

“Both teams have come a long way since then,” said Surman.

“I remember that game, it was enjoyable to play in, although probably not for them. 

“If we get a win it’ll be great, but they’ve got a lot of quality. The main thing is that if we go into the game with the right attitude, we’ll have a better chance of winning it.

“The Fulham game was disappointing, and I’m sure the fans were disappointed too, just like the players and Manager. 

“It was important to bounce back from that, and it showed great character from the players to go out and give a performance like that and get the first point on the board against QPR.

“We were disappointed not to win the game, and I think the result didn’t really reflect the performance in the end. 

“We were unlucky, and almost their only chance was the penalty. We’ll take the positives from it, and as long as the performances are like that, we’ll win more games than not.

“You want to get a winning mentality going and go on a run. It’d be good to go on a cup run because we haven’t really done that great in cups recently. 

“It’ll be an interesting match and we’ve really go to be on top of our game, otherwise it’s a potential banana skin.”