Sam Dalby can hit Dundee Utd double figures as Jim Goodwin reveals signing was long time in the making

Jim Goodwin believes on-form Sam Dalby can go on and fire himself into double figures at Dundee United.

The big striker, who is on-loan from Wrexham, has netted three goals in the last four games. Goodwin has been delighted with him and confirmed that Dalby had been a long-term target that he had first tried to get to Tannadice when the club was still in the Championship. The United boss said: “I think that's three and four now for Sam

“(Double figures) is the challenge you set down to your forward players. They want to score as many goals as possible and we need to (make sure that we're creating the opportunities and putting him in the right areas to be getting on the end of these chances. Sam has kind of lacked a real run in any team. He's been out on loan.

“He's competed against some really good strikers in that Wrexham team, some good experienced players and he's probably never really had the chance to make that jersey his own. We told him he would get that opportunity here and so far, so good.

“He's had to be patient at the beginning of the season, but slowly but surely got his way into the team and deservedly so, keeps his place in that starting XI at the moment.”

Goodwin tried to get Dalby in last season and even this summer didn’t think they were going to get him until Wrexham opened the door for them on deadline night. Goodwin explained: “Yeah, no, we identified him way back, you know, prior to the Championship starting.

“I’ve known about Sam for a long time and Michael Kearney, our scout as well, has known about him for a long time. “It’s always good when the new scout comes in with a database of players and a lot of the players on his database are players that I'm already familiar with and I've already