Essendon coach Matthew Knights has thrown his support behind out-of-form key forward Scott Lucas.

While fellow key forward Matthew Lloyd sprung back to life with eight goals in his past two games, Lucas was goalless against North Melbourne last week.

The 31-year-old forward has had a slow start to the season following knee surgery but Knights is confident he is on the verge of recapturing his form.

"Lloyd had a breakout game (kicking six goals) against Carlton and I don't think Scotty Lucas is far from having that also," Knights said.

"Scott is very positive about the way he's going about his footy, so usually players of such high quality have breakthrough games, like (North's) Brent Harvey had last week against us.

"You understand players of that ilk and quality will have a breakout game and get their season on track.

"He's come back from a very serious injury. I've felt that in the last two weeks he's moved a lot better and covered a lot more ground, so his movement patterns are on the up."

"He's just had a couple of weeks where he hasn't taken his opportunities and I'm sure that will come because he's so technically sound," said Knights.

"It's just a matter of time before he has a breakout game."

Knights said the Bombers would be patient with the experienced forward.

"I don't think we'll alter the way he plays. I think that's probably fair as a coach and player that we discussed three weeks ago that I didn't think he was moving at the level he would like to," he said.

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