JOHN Coleman is looking forward to the glove story he expects to unfold at Accrington Stanley, after signing Jonny Maxted on a permanent deal from non-league Guiseley.

The former Doncaster Rovers, Hartlepool and Forest Green Rovers stopper broke Stanley's hearts with his FA Cup first round replay heroics - saving penalties from Billy Kee and Scott Brown in the shoot-out to send the National League side through to round two.

Maxted's performances over the two games shone the spotlight even brighter onto a player Coleman was already aware, and ultimately brought him into the Stanley squad after he signed an 18-month contract last week.

Now the Stanley boss is relishing a new battle to be the Reds' number one between Maxted and Aaron Chapman, following Max Stryjek's return to parent club Sunderland.

"To have our own keeper and get him on a longish term contract, we’ve got two keepers now who can compete with each other and that’s what I want," said Coleman.

"I don’t want one being a number one and one being a number two, I want them pushing for first team starts and I think healthy competition will hopefully lead to more output from both of them."

“It’s always difficult when you’ve got a loan keeper, we don’t really like to have back-up keepers. Max came in from Sunderland with a big reputation and we had high hopes for him but unfortunately he got injured.

“In that spell he was injured Chappy had a purple patch and played well.

“It was an expensive option from Sunderland that we thought was worthy of the outlay and we couldn’t justify that to ourselves really.

“And then you’ve got a quality goalie in Max who doesn’t want to be sitting on the bench.

He feels as though he wants to go and play football and I understand that totally so it was mutually agreed that he would go back and I think it suited all parties.

“But then it was important that we replaced him."

Of his decision to swoop for Maxted, Coleman added: “I knew of him before the cup match but obviously he comes to our attention more when he played in that tie and he played really well in both games. And just seeing him in training, he has a good attitude towards training. I’ve seen him in a friendly already and he was pleasing."