Iron striker Paul Hayes will be looking to get one over his former club at Glanford Park on Saturday afternoon. The player is a former Canaries youth product and spent six years at Carrow Road before Scunthorpe United signed up the striker five years ago and, after spells at Barnsley and Huddersfield, returned to the Iron during the summer.

Iron striker Paul Hayes will be looking to get one over his former club at Glanford Park on Saturday afternoon.

The player is a former Canaries youth product and spent six years at Carrow Road before Scunthorpe United signed up the striker five years ago and, after spells at Barnsley and Huddersfield, returned to the Iron during the summer.

And although Hayes was played on the right-wing in Scunthorpe's 3-2 defeat at Ipswich last Saturday, he will be hoping for a spot up front against Norwich.

That would mean Hayes squaring up to a familiar face in Jason Shackell, although he will be hoping for a different result to the last time the two faced each other, when Hayes arrived at Carrow Road with Barnsley last season. Hayes scored the Tykes' consolation goal.

“There's three or four players still at Norwich from when I was there and one of my closest mates is Jason Shackell,” said Hayes.

“With him playing centre-half and me hopefully playing centre-forward, it will be a good test. I played against him last year, but unfortunately we lost 5-1 at their place.

“I know three or four of the first team who were there when I was a youth team boy so it's a game I've been looking forward to.”

Hayes, who played for Scunthorpe at Carrow Road during the goalless draw earlier in the season, was highly rated at Norwich during his time here, with some City fans questioning the wisdom of letting him leave in 2002.

“I enjoyed my time at Norwich and learned my trade there, but they obviously didn't like my style of play or the type of person I was so I moved to Scunthorpe,” said the 23-year-old front man.

“One season they were battling against relegation and the following season they got to the play-off final and lost to Birmingham. They've have their ups and downs, like Scunthorpe, in the last few years.

“Norwich are a side that are capable of pushing for promotion, but obviously they are struggling at this moment. When we played at Carrow Road I thought it looked like there was a lack of confidence in the team. They weren't working for each other.

“But they've got a new manager [Glenn Roeder], with new ideas, in now and they've started picking up a few wins.”

Scunthorpe are only two places above Norwich in the Coca-Cola Championship table and despite the Iron's current run of 10 matches without a win, Hayes believes confidence is still high ahead of Saturday.

“Everyone is coming out with all these stats and saying we need a win and we do need a win. But there's six other teams down there that need a win as well.

“People are saying we haven't won in 10 games, but we haven't lost that many either; we've drawn quite a few.

“The position we're in at the moment is the lowest we've been all season. We've dropped away from where we were at the start of the season but still to this day we haven't been in the bottom three.

“We're holding our own and we just need that little bit of luck, and when we get that we can hopefully go on a little run.

“We've played well and created chances, but unfortunately with the league that we're in, one mistake and you can be punished.”