BEN Coker is confident Southend United can spring a surprise at Scunthorpe tonight.

The seventh placed Shrimpers have not won since mid January while the second placed Iron have not been beaten since mid November.

But Coker is not daunted by the contrasting form and feels Blues can definitely come out on top.

“We’ve actually done better against the top teams this season and hopefully it will be the same tonight,” said the left-back.

“We’ve beaten Chesterfield, Oxford, Burton and Fleetwood to name just a few so there’s no reason why we can’t beat Scunthorpe too.

“I actually thought we started the game at Morecambe quite well and were looking good until they equalised.

“After that we just weren’t good enough and we apologise to all the fans who made the long trip to see us play like that.”

Despite the defeat and the recent run of bad form, Blues still find themselves sitting in the play-off positions.

But, for that to continue, Coker feels the team must start reacting strongly to any setbacks they might suffer.

“We seem to go under as soon as we concede a goal at the moment and that has got to stop,” said the defender.

“We’ve shown what we’re capable of at times this season and we need to get back to playing like that.

“Things haven’t gone our way on a couple of occasions but we can’t keep saying it’s down to bad luck because we haven’t won for 10 games now.

“We just need to start doing better, cut out the mistakes and work as hard as we can to pick up more points.”

Coker will also be keen to see off the Iron after a rare defensive gaffe from him handed them all three points at Roots Hall back in September.

The left-back’s mis-directed header enabled Chris Iwelumo to nod home the only goal of the game.

And Coker is keen to avoid any such mishaps tonight.

“I still remember that mistake and I don’t want it to happen again but thankfully I’ve been quite consistent since then,” said the 23-year-old.

“Hopefully that can continue and we can get a good result tonight to get ourselves going again.”

Blues will also be bidding for their first win away at Scunthorpe since 1983.