Twelve months ago, the journey from Colchester to Scunthorpe meant simply 'destination Championship' for Paul Reid.

A year to the day since he signed for the Iron from the U's, the same could hardly be said when he makes the reverse trip to face his old club tomorrow.

Talk of United re-claiming a place in the second tier this season is 'long gone', according to Reid, who is fully recovered from a groin injury.

With Scunthorpe still hovering too close to the relegation zone for comfort, it is not how the centre-back wanted his claret and blue career to pan out.

Succinctly summing up his spell so far at Glanford Park in one word, he is targeting an improvement, both individually and collectively.

"Average," was his response when asked for his thoughts on his first year with the Iron.

"I would say I've got really high standards. Without being disrespectful, I think I came into a football club that was really struggling in the Championship and a team that wasn't good enough to stay in the Championship, which is really hard to come into.

"I think this season some of my performances have been better than I've been given credit for, others have been just average.

"Personally I feel I've helped the team this season rather than hinder it.

"But it's up to me to start doing better.

"It's not one of those where I'm knocking myself and saying I must do better because I'm not playing well. I think I'm doing okay.

"I think the management think I'm doing okay. I think they respect the fact I influence other players around me and am not a bad player in my own right.

"It's not one of those, but I think every player would say they need to do better.

"I think my performances over the season had improved prior to me getting injured.

"Hopefully I can get myself back in the first XI and continue that trend."

Although both his former and current clubs have similar aims when it comes to returning to the Championship, Reid says their methods are very different.

"At the time I signed for Colchester, in my mind they were really having a go for the Championship," said the defender, who signed for the U's in July 2008.

"They signed a lot of players.

"Here, it's going to have to be done more on a budget, and that's fair enough.

"I think this football club would need to over-achieve to sustain itself in the Championship, but that doesn't mean we can't over-achieve.

"There are plenty of teams where you say, I can't believe they're in that division, so that's irrelevant.

"There's no reason why we can't punch above our weight and be a Championship club.

"But first thing's first, before we start talking about anything like that, we're in the bottom six in League One.

"We need to forget the Championship, we can even forget about the play-offs at the moment, we just need to get ourselves going and get into mid-table.

"Talk of the Championship and the play-offs, for me, is long gone.

"You can't build a promotion season on some of the performances we've produced.

"The back end of the season, I think, will be about showing a bit of pride, improving results and giving everyone a real lift going into next season."