Man of the moment James Gray hopes to agree a new deal with Stanley after a superb finish to the season.

The 21-year-old striker followed up his winner at Oxford with a brace in last Saturday’s home win against AFC Wimbledon.

Having previously gone 17 games without scoring, that final flourish saw Gray end the campaign with seven goals from 21 league starts, with 14 appearances from the bench.

The Northern Ireland Under-21 international is now out of contract and, having enjoyed a post-season break with his team-mates this week, he is set to reopen talks with manager James Beattie.

“I knew that as long as I kept playing well then I’d have a chance of getting a new contract here or somewhere else,” he said.

“I’d love to stay here so I just tried to go out and do the best I could every single week.”

After being released by Middlesbrough, Gray had brief spells in non-league with Darlington and Kettering so would relish the chance to continue repaying the faith Stanley showed in him by taking him on in August 2012.

“People don’t give Accrington the respect they deserve,” he said. “They’re an established League Two team now.

“Everyone makes us favourites to go down every year but we finished 15th so there were a lot of teams below us.

“I love the club and the fans, it’s close-knit, and I’m really thankful for what Accrington have done for me so far.

“I’ve got three goals in two games now but the main objective is the club. We’re safe and we finished well clear in the end.

“I don’t think we could even have dreamed about finishing 15th. I’d have taken 22nd after our first win.

“But it’s brilliant for the lads and brilliant for the club that we’ve managed to finish so high.

“The target was to beat last year’s points tally and we did.

“We wanted to put a show on for the fans and for ourselves, so we could enjoy it a bit more.

“We couldn’t celebrate that much because we still had one more game so we wanted to win against Wimbledon. We can celebrate now.”

That they did in Magaluf this week and they’re already looking forward to next term.

“We could have been in the play-offs if the season went on for another two weeks,” Gray added.

“You can see the results we can pick up at home and away so if we can keep the squad together there’s no reason we can’t push on again next season.”