MARK Harris is confident his goal drought will come to an end, having learnt from his experiences last season.

The Oxford United striker started the current campaign on fire, with four goals in his first four Sky Bet Championship games.

Those strikes helped him receive the Championship player of the month award for August, representing back-to-back gongs for Harris, who scooped the League One player of the month prize in April.

However, he hasn’t scored in the 11 appearances since his fast start, somewhat mirroring his 2023/24 campaign.

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Harris bagged five goals in eight games across all competitions at the beginning of last season, but then only scored once, in the EFL Trophy, in his following 20 matches.

A flurry of goals in the new year, with seven in nine games, plus six in six matches towards the end of the campaign, saw Harris finish the season with a respectable 19 strikes to his name.

He said: “I started similar to last year. I started the season well, picking up a few goals, and it’s dried off.

“I always believe in myself, I’ll get back scoring and helping the team. It’s just a moment of when.”

Harris won’t be chasing his next goal though, after learning from what happened last season.

He said: “I think that’s the worst thing you can do. I think I may have got caught up in that last year to be fair, but now I’ve had spells where I wasn’t scoring, as long as I’m helping the team and we’re getting results, that’s the main thing.

“I know as a number nine, selfishly I want to be scoring the goals. I want to be the one that’s helping the team, but as long as we’re picking up three points and climbing that table, that’s the main thing.”

The difference with this season compared to the previous one though is that Harris now has true competition in the form of Tottenham Hotspur loanee Dane Scarlett, who has scored three goals in his last six appearances for the U’s.

Harris said: “He’s come in and done very well. He’s picked up some good positions and some good goals.

“It’s good, the competition. Hopefully we can maybe even play together, but as long as one of us is scoring, the fans will be happy, so hopefully both of us can keep putting them away.”