THE stakes are different for Accrington Stanley’s latest meeting with Yeovil - arguably higher.

While the financial gains were greater last season, with a mouthwatering FA Cup third round tie with Manchester United awaiting the winners - which proved to be the Glovers - the long-term gains are more significant this time around with the Reds fixing an early eye on promotion.

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Nevertheless, there is a sense of John Coleman wanting to get his own back.

“They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and it can’t get much colder,” he said, before adding: “That won’t come into it, but maybe at 10 o’clock you might have a smile if you’ve won.”

The cup loss was a turning point for Stanley last season, and not in a good way as they lost six out of their next eight games and slipped away from the top seven target Coleman had made following his return to the hotseat as James Beattie’s successor.

It proved to have a more positive impact for Matt Crooks, though.

His open-goal miss cost the Reds their United dream as Yeovil ran out 2-0 winners in the second round replay, but he came back stronger for the experience, and has settled into a regular midfield role.

“He still gets stick over it. We still tell him he cost the club half a million pounds – and he topped it this year with his penalty against Hull!” said Coleman of the Reds shoot-out defeat to the Tigers in this season’s Capital One Cup.

“But he’s a great lad. If he was any more laid back he’d be horizontal! And he’s a great player.

“I see players playing in the Premier League and the Championship who can’t hold a candle to him.

“He can be whatever he wants to be.”

Of the cup defeat, Coleman added: “It was weird for different reasons, selling tickets for a game that never happened on the back of that.

“We got so close and yet so far. As I said at the time those days come and go. I was hoping we’d have passed Yeovil last year but we didn’t, we fell apart.

“We had an injury crisis in the second half of the season so we didn’t win as many games as we could have done. But I still think we were good enough to challenge for the play-offs last year and I certainly think we’re good enough to challenge for the play-offs this year.”