Eighteen months ago, Michael Nelson went to Charlton Athletic and scored the goal that secured Norwich City promotion back to the Championship.

Today he returns to The Valley this time looking to kickstart a season in which Scunthorpe United hope to do the same.

The Canaries' game in the capital was 34 minutes when Nelson came forward for a corner and powered a header into the back of the net.

But whereas the Iron centre-back played a starring role in that piece of history, he admits he would happily settle for a back seat this time around as Scunthorpe look to put a stuttering start to the season behind them.

Draws against Wycombe and Preston on consecutive Saturdays have taken a different appearance on the back of Tuesday's lacklustre home defeat by an Oldham side who had lost both their previous league games.

And while there is no need to panic about performances or results just yet, Nelson accepts United must attempt to develop some consistency if they are to halt their early slide towards the bottom four.

"We're not the finished article at the moment," the defender told the Telegraph.

"I think every team is at that stage at the minute. It's hard three games into the season to pick a team who are really flying.

"Every team is going to have ups and downs as the season goes on, this is our sticky moment but hopefully we'll get it out of the way early doors and kick on from there.

"I'd settle for anybody scoring on Saturday as long as we get a win.

"It would just be nice to go there and get something out of the game.

"The longer we go without a win will be more of a worry to people outside the dressing room than those of us in it.

"But we need to start getting some good results."

Manager Alan Knill accused the Iron of being short in both boxes during the midweek defeat against Oldham Athletic.

With that in mind, the timing of a trip to The Valley is about as unkind as it gets given the Addicks have been ruthless on their march to the top of the table.

They crushed play-off semi-finalists AFC Bournemouth 3-0 in front of their own fans on the opening day of the campaign and have followed that style up with substance during away successes at Notts County (2-1) and Colchester United (2-0) inside the past seven days.

Boss Chris Powell may have undertaken a complete rebuild in South London during the summer – bringing in an incredible 16 new faces, which include ex-Iron duo Paul Hayes and Andy Hughes – but there appears to be no lack of understanding.

"It's a tough place to go, regardless of whether they've started well or not," Nelson said of the game.

"They're flying and are up there. Hopefully for us they will think they are unbeatable.

"We'll go down there and we have to be solid and compact whilst still trying to play our football.

"They've made a lot of changes and sometimes when that happens it can take a team to while to gel. They seem to have hit the ground running.

"I haven't seen any of their games, but hopefully it's one of those things where the lads have come in and put on individual performances and hopefully they might not click as a team when we go there.

"If not, we have to stop them from doing that. But until Saturday, we won't know."

United have had to come from behind to level in all three of their league outings so far – conceding four times from a collective 13 shots on target.

It's a situation which is clearly hindering their efforts and allowing opposition teams the opportunity to shut up shop.

Do the same again at The Valley, particularly early on, and United are likely to endure a long afternoon at a stadium that hosted seven successive seasons of Premier League football prior to Charlton's relegation from the top flight in 2007.

So today, for once, Nelson would love the boot to be on the other foot.

"We're always giving ourselves a mountain to climb and that makes a difference," he said.

"Teams change their shape to try to make it difficult for you once they've gone one-up.

"It would be nice to see what teams would do if went one-up. Then they've got to come out to try to get you and the game opens up.

"With the pace and trickery we've got out wide, I think we could go on and win games by two or three.

"But we've got to get ourselves in a position to be able to do that."

Saturday would be the ideal place to start.