Given footballers can be a superstitious bunch, it is no surprise to hear  Shane Duffy's take on Scunthorpe United's recent troubles.

Many of the Iron squad have spent the past month growing moustaches as part of the Movember campaign to raise awareness of men's health issues.

For a good cause it may have been, but coincidentally, United's own has not fared so well, having gone the whole of November without a win.

Duffy jokes now the facial hair has come off, so will Scunthorpe's shackles.

"I said a few jokes about the moustaches," he grinned.

"Me and Bobby Grant didn't do it, so I said I'm blaming it on the moustaches!

"We'll get them off and we'll start winning!

"It's been a bad month. We have to laugh about it now but we have to turn it around."

It was said in jest, but the Everton loanee knows in truth, the Iron's form is no laughing matter.

This week saw his stay at Glanford Park extended for a third time, a situation he says he is 'delighted' with.

But though benefiting from time on the pitch, Duffy admits not everything about his loan spell has panned out as he would wish.

"When I first came I was thinking, 'yeah, we're going to be near the top'," he said.

"I'm probably the same as the fans.

"I didn't know a lot about Scunthorpe before I came, I was just looking from the outside.

"When I'm here, it's been different. But we've been unlucky to be where we are.

"This month has been terrible for us. It's just been a really bad month, we haven't even played well and haven't won.

"At the start I was thinking, 'we're playing well, so it's allright, it's going to turn round'.

"But this month we haven't even played well.

"It's just one of those things in football. Hopefully we can just forget about it.

"I thought the performance was there last week (against Notts County) and we could have just kicked on from that.

"Now we've got a full two weeks to prepare for the Carlisle game, so we'll have no excuses.

"It's a massive game for us. We've got to win, no matter what."

The return of captain Cliff Byrne at Meadow Lane provided a huge boost, according to Duffy.

At the opposite end of the experience scale however, was the central defensive pairing of himself and fellow Republic of Ireland Under-21 international Niall Canavan.

Playing together in claret and blue for the first time, the 19-year-old says there was added incentive to repay manager Alan Knill's faith.

"Me and Niall know each other a lot, I knew him before I came here," said Duffy.

"You want to show the manager that he can play and trust a young defence.

"Both of us said before the game, 'let's just go out and show him what we can do together'.

"It doesn't matter about the age, it's the way you play.

"The fans probably thought it was a bit of a risk to have a 19 and 20-year-old playing at this time.

"But I thought we did allright.

"Maybe Cliff coming back gave us all a lift, having a character and leader in there.

"Cliff's the captain. He does a lot on the pitch and off the pitch, which helps the young lads.

"We had two young centre-halves playing on Saturday and then Ash (Palmer) came on at left-back.

"It's good to have Cliff there, he's always talking, which is good."