Chris Dagnall believes his 14 months at Scunthorpe United have turned him into a better player - and he's hoping fans will share the same opinion in the coming months.

The in-form striker returns to former club Rochdale tomorrow night, fresh from scoring his best-ever goal in Iron colours during Saturday's 1-1 draw with Sheffield United.

Dagnall admits he hasn't netted as much as he would have liked since swapping Spotland for Glanford Park in the summer of 2010.

But he is confident Dale will see the strides he has made courtesy of his season-long stint in the Championship and is hoping that experience will help push United into top six contention, despite their failure to win so far this term.

"I had a great three or four years there and loved every second of it," said the Scouser, whose 20 goals in the 2009/10 campaign earned Rochdale promotion to the third tier.

"It will be great to go back there and I hope I'll get a nice reception.

"Winning promotion there gave me the opportunity to come to Scunthorpe and have that year in the Championship, which I'm very grateful for.

"A year's experience in the Championship would do anyone the world of good.

"I enjoyed every second of last year, even though it proved to be a failure in the end. It was a big step up from League Two, but I enjoyed the games.

"I think I'm a better player for it and hopefully that will show throughout the season."

Performances may not be difficult to come by for the Iron, victories though have so far proved elusive.

That's despite some dominant displays - including during the weekend's draw with the top-of-the-table Blades.

Having played some decent football, a winless seven-match streak is not too much of a concern in the Scunthorpe camp.

But Dagnall accepts it has to change sooner rather than later if the Iron want to be considered serious contenders for the top six.

"If we keep performing the way we have been, someone is in for a hiding," the striker said.

"Surely playing like that we're going to get a win soon and it will probably be by three or four goals.

"But we're wary we can't keep saying 'it'll come', we have to back up what we say and it has to happen soon otherwise we're going to fall too far behind where we want to be.

"We're going to make it very hard for ourselves if we don't start picking up some three points.

"Every game we've played we've had an opportunity to win the game, something just hasn't clicked.

"We can take a lot of heart from the last two performances. We're getting there, but obviously going down to 10 men has hindered us."

On his 45th minute strike on Saturday, which saw him get the better of three Blades defenders before stroking the ball past visiting keeper Steve Simonsen, Dagnall added: "Someone asked me if that was my best goal for Scunthorpe. I said it was, quite easily, but I haven't scored that many!"