Stanley midfielder Piero Mingoia admits he was slightly surprised to be handed a new contract with the club but now can’t wait to spend another season at the Store First Stadium.

The 22-year-old has put pen to paper on a 12 month extension to his deal that will see him stay with the club until the summer of 2015.

“It came as a bit of a surprise to me,” he admitted. “The gaffer pulled me in at the beginning of last week and said that they wanted to offer me a new contract so naturally I was over the moon. We managed to sort it out quite quickly, I signed it earlier in the week and it’s all been sorted now. It’s great news.

“I thought that contracts are normally sorted out in the summer or closer to when your previous contract expires. It came as a nice surprise.

“I love it up here. All the players are great and all the staff and everyone at the club have treated me really well. I’m over the moon that I’ll be here for next season.”

The former Watford man is now looking to the future, starting with Saturday’s home game against local rivals Bury.

“It’s a derby game and where we both are in the league makes it an even bigger game,” he said. “Three points against them on Saturday can really kick us on to finish the season well.

“We had a few good performances and one where we didn’t really turn up at Fleetwood over Christmas but I think it was important to get the three points at Cheltenham because we’d given away two points against Newport.”