This weekend marks the return of the FA Cup as Scunthorpe play host to fellow League One opponents Burton Albion at Glanford Park and Iron striker Lee Novak can’t wait to get involved in such a prestigious competition.
He spoke to iFollow Iron previewing the fixture and said: “I love it (the FA Cup). When you went to the park as a kid, you always dreamt of being able to score the winner (in the final). For me personally as well, I’ve always had a decent record in the competition scoring wise when playing against some big teams, so I hope that we can keep that going on Saturday."
The Iron go into the game against Burton looking for their first win in eight matches in all competitions, and Novak believes it's important to get a result to try and turn the fortune of recent weeks around.
He went on to say: “We are not on a great run at the minute, so if we can get a win this weekend and make it through to the next round, it will be a big confidence boost to take into future games and start a good run going again.”
However, having already played the Brewers in the league this season in a 0-0 draw at the Pirelli Stadium back in September, the 30-year-old thinks that the Iron can learn from their performance that day and turn that previous draw into a win.
He stated: “We can definitely take positives from that game because they are a very good team that are up there fighting at the top of the league. We also go into the match on Saturday with a bit of confidence ourselves after coming back from being three down against Oxford last weekend and earning a draw.”
Talking about that frantic 3-3 draw against Oxford in the league last time out, Novak added: “It was like a Jekyll and Hyde kind of sketch for the first 55 minutes of that game.
“We found ourselves 3-0 down and then we showed excellent courage and character to come back to make it 3-3 and then almost nicked it at the end, so we can take a lot of positives from that.”
Three goals in just six minutes for the Iron against the U's turned that match around and the striker thinks that the result can provide a platform to build on as the Scunthorpe look to progress to the next round of the cup.
He said: “It’ll give us a massive confidence boost. We have looked back and analysed the Oxford game in terms of what was good and what was bad, and the good clips definitely outweigh the bad ones, so we’ve seen what we can improve on going into this weekend.”
Speaking about his final thoughts ahead of the FA Cup encounter, Novak said: “We’ve got to go out there on that pitch on Saturday, win at all costs, get that first win back on the board and take confidence from it.”
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