Alan Knill has warned players on the periphery of his matchday squad must exercise patience and prove their potential if they are to return to the Iron starting line-up.

Having brought in seven new faces during January and seen several old ones return from injury, Scunthorpe United now have genuine selection dilemmas ahead of the busiest stage of the campaign.

First-team regulars like Jordan Robertson and Andy Barcham were only substitutes for Tuesday's single-goal success over Rochdale, while Eddie Nolan – who has missed only one league match this term – didn't even make the bench.

But with the win in midweek starting a run of 12 games in 39 days, and that prior to the traditionally busy Easter programme, Knill says patience will be a virtue.

"Everybody is going to take part because there's so many games," he said, after admitting to having to make some tough selection decisions.

"I expect people to be disappointed if they're not playing or not on the bench, but the best thing to do is to try to prove me wrong every day and then when you get your chance, take it.

"It's as simple as that.

"Even when you're on the bench, if you don't get on one match, you'll get on another time.

"It's the first time we've had competition, but I'm delighted it's come at the right time.

"You can see training has picked up.

"We've got some pretty good players who weren't even on the bench on Tuesday, but I'm sure they'll be pushing the ones that did play."

Decisions will hopefully become even tougher in the next few weeks.

Jimmy Ryan is closing in on a return to action from a knee injury and Connor Jennings is now only a month away as he recovers from a broken metatarsal.

"He's not far away," said Knill of former Accrington ace Ryan.

"Then we've got some real problems on the bench.

"He's running and I think he's doing a little bit of football.

"We hope he'll be training with us next week and then hopefully be in contention.

"It definitely makes those central areas competitive, which is really good news."