Norwich City manager Nigel Worthington wants his players to use tomorrow's clash against arch-rivals Ipswich to kick-start their stuttering Championship campaign.

Norwich City manager Nigel Worthington wants his players to use tomorrow's clash against arch-rivals Ipswich to kick-start their stuttering Championship campaign.

The Canaries moved to within one point of the play-off zone after winning five straight games around Christmas, but since the turn of the year they have struggled badly for results, with Tuesday night's 4-0 drubbing at Reading completing a dismal sequence of three defeats and a draw in January.

As a result City have slipped 10 points off the pace in the battle for a crack at promotion, and the gap will be up to 13 by close of play this afternoon if Preston win at Stoke, and Crystal Palace come out on top in their home clash against Cardiff.

Worthington is well aware that his side need to start winning games on a regular basis if they are to stand a chance of being involved in the end-of-season shoot-out and wants that process to start this weekend with a fourth straight derby success.

“Every game is a new game - you can't take any notice of what has happened in these fixtures before,” he said. “We have got to go out there and get the bad performance of Tuesday night out of our systems. This time I will be looking for a good performance, and a good result.

“We had a good December and an average January and now we have got to make sure we have a very good February.”

While Worthington has no intention of revelling in past achievements against Ipswich he can't wait for the game to come around - and doesn't believe that the early kick-off time of 11.15am will have any detrimental effect on the occasion.

“The derby game is a great game - they bring a lot of excitement with them and plenty of rivalry too,” he said. “Meetings between Norwich and Ipswich are always hard games, good games - and I'm sure Sunday's will be no different.”