Manager James Beattie is set to meet with Stanley chairman Peter Marsden to confirm his budget for the 2014/15 season.

The pair were unable to discuss money matters after the final game of the season last Saturday, an entertaining 3-2 victory at home to AFC Wimbledon.

That confirmed a mid-table finish in Beattie’s first season as a manager – and he’s already looking ahead to his second.

“I know how it works and we’ve been professional,” said the Reds’ boss. “We started planning for next season about six weeks ago – earmarking players, deciding which players we want to keep and which we’re going to let go.

“That’s football and I believe that’s the right way to go about it. Being a player, they now go into shutdown. I’ve told them to get away for a couple of weeks. They’ll need that both physically and mentally.

“They’ll do their pre pre-season to keep themselves fit, but the next six to eight weeks will probably be the busiest period for me before they report back for pre-season.”

Two of the players on the agenda will be in-form strikers James Gray and Kayode Odejayi, who between them scored five goals in Stanley’s last two games of the season.

Gray is out of contract this summer and it is understood the 21-year-old has been offered new terms. Odejayi has been on loan with the Reds since September and although his Rotherham deal expires on June 30, Beattie admits the 32-year-old will have to take a pay-cut if he is to make a permanent move to Stanley.

“Kay is one of the players we’ve discussed,” Beattie added. “It’s probably too much money for us to pay him what he’s on now, but I’m sure there’ll be a conversation between me and him.

“I’ve already spoken to James Gray and told him what my intentions are with him, as is the case with other members of the squad. I need to sit down with the chairman, first and foremost, and get the numbers I’m allowed to play with.

“He wanted to do that on Saturday but with the awards presentation and everyone’s family being around, we were busy entertaining people.

“So we’ve taken a bit of time out and we’ll maybe meet in London in the next week or so.

“Once I get my budget numbers we can start planning and putting things in concrete from there. But we spoke on Saturday morning and the chairman was very positive about a lot of things we’ve discussed over the past few months.

“I want the club to progress, I want us to do better next season and, for however long I’m here, I want things to improve both on and off the pitch.”

Midfielder Peter Murphy is also out of contract and after enjoying the best season of his career to date, Beattie will have to compete with other clubs to keep the 24-year-old at Stanley.

With other transfer activity inevitable, the Reds’ boss felt it was too early to make any predictions for next season.

“We have to see how much money we’ve got to spend in the summer,” he explained. “It depends on which players we can keep, which players bigger teams come enquiring about and which players we can go after.

“The lads have done a great job. It’s widely known we’ve got the worst budget in the Football League but if we can create something similar to what we’ve had this season and we get a cash injection from somewhere then who knows what’s possible?”

That team spirit was epitomised by the fact that although Lee Molyneux’s loan from Crewe had expired, he chose to spend the final day of the season with Stanley rather than see if the Alex could retain their League 1 status, which they managed to achieve, with Tranmere following Carlisle, Shrewsbury and Stevenage into League 2.

The players then headed straight into Stanley’s clubhouse for the presentation of the supporters’ end-of-season awards.

Centre-half Tom Aldred was named player of the year by both the fans and the club website after remarkably playing every minute of every game.

“I’m buzzing to have won the awards,” said the 23-year-old. “It’s a season I will never forget.”

The supporters’ young player award went to on-loan Fulham goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli.

“It’s a lovely reward,” said the 21-year-old. “I’ve loved every minute of my time here.”