'Sam knows what we think of him' - Goodwin hails Dalby 'purple patch'

Jim Goodwin has praised in-form Dundee United striker Sam Dalby, but says it's "too early" to look at a permanent move for the Wrexham loanee.

Dalby has netted in four successive United games and all five of his goals for the club have come in the last six of his 11 appearances.

The 24-year-old, who is on a season-long loan at Tannadice, is out of contract at Wrexham next summer so can speak to interested clubs in the new year.

"It's always important for your strikers to be scoring goals and we're very lucky here that we've got three really good strikers in Louis Moult, Jort van der Sande and Sam," said Goodwin.

"Dalby at the moment is grabbing the headlines, but you never want to be relying too heavily on any one individual and that's probably the thing that's pleased me the most throughout the season where there's been a number of different goalscorers week to week.

"Sam is going through a bit of a purple patch at the moment and long may that continue. Sam and his agent know what we think of him here, that's why we tried so hard in the summer to bring him to the club.

"We sold it to him on the premise that we believed his game was suited to the Scottish Premiership. He made a big commitment as well to travel so far north, he showed the desire he had to play regular first-team football in the top league.

"It's working really well for all parties at the moment. It's too early at this stage for us to be talking about contracts with players and things like that.

"We need to get into the new year, see where we are after the busy festive period and then we can sit down and start having some serious discussions."