Chris Martin has found his scoring boots at Crystal Palace.

Norwich City’s on loan striker Chris Martin believes Crystal Palace can emulate the Canaries’ Championship promotion success.

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Martin’s brace at the weekend helped the Eagles sink Watford 4-0 at Selhurst Park to revive fading play-off hopes after the recent distractions of a heart-breaking Carling Cup semi-final exit.

The 23-year-old opted to extend his initial Palace stint until the end of the current season last month following a bit-part role in Norwich’s Premier League campaign prior to Christmas. Martin is in no doubt Dougie Freedman’s side are capable of making up an eight point deficit to the top six if they hit top form over the Championship run-in.

“That is why I made that decision to come, help them win some games and hopefully get Palace challenging for those play-offs,” he said. “We’re a little bit off it at the moment but we will keep going until the end and try to get as high up that league as possible. Every team in this league is capable of going on a run. Look at the likes of Nottingham Forest who are down the bottom but in recent years have been play-off contenders. It is that unpredictable and if you can put a string of results together, two, three or four wins together in a run – which every team in this league is quite capable of doing – it can move you up the league very quickly.”

Martin has now plundered five goals in nine starts for the Eagles and the Beccles-bred frontman admits the switch carries mutual benefits as he bids to kick-start his own career.

“It’s nice to have that security and know where I am going to be playing, even though it’s just until the end of the season,” he said. “It was a bit up in the air for a couple of months. I didn’t know whether I was staying or not or going back to Norwich. It’s just nice to be settled a bit more, have that out of the road and concentrate on my football.

“I think it was the best thing when you look at it for my career to come and sign for Palace until the end of the season. From my own point of view, I needed to play games. That is the whole reason why I came on loan and why I am still here. I want to play as many games as possible and as many minutes. That is what all footballers like to do. I want to do that now until the end of the season and see where that takes me.”

Martin has already become a firm fans’ favourite with the Selhurst Park faithful.

“I’ve been lucky in the fact that being at Norwich home or away they come and support the team in their thousands and it is the same at Palace,” he told the Eagles’ official site. “There is a lot of support and it does surprise you at times when you see so many going up to places like Middlesbrough in horrendous weather. It gives all the lads a nice boost. That was one of the best games we have played in. I thought we played really well and were desperately unlucky not to get three points from the game. I think if we had been more clinical in front of goal we could have had two or three goals. It was frustrating not to win but we took the positives from it and moved on. The positive is we know we have had consistently good performances in the last few games.”