YORK City old boy Jason Mooney has told his former team-mates not to expect any favours from high-flying Accrington Stanley side this afternoon.

Mooney, who will be in goal for today’s hosts, has stressed that Stanley are as keen to progress in the FA Cup as they are to maintain their place among the Sky Bet League Two pacesetters.

The clubs will meet in the competition for the first time at the Crown Ground with Accrington currently lying fourth in the table and Jackie McNamara’s new charges third-bottom.

But Mooney, who swapped life as the Minstermen’s third choice this summer for a regular place between the sticks at Lancashire outfit, has dismissed all talk of prioritising the league ahead of the first-round tie, saying: “I know how the gaffer (John Coleman) is here and he wants to win every single game.

“Even in pre-season, he was going nuts if the team wasn’t playing well, so this weekend will be no different and, as players, we want to win the game as well.”

Mooney insists, though, that the game will carry no extra significance for himself despite his torrid time at Bootham Crescent.

The 26-year-old shot-stopper was recruited from Tranmere in the summer of 2014 by former manager Nigel Worthington on a two-year deal but, having been preferred to the long-serving Michael Ingham at the start of the campaign, he was hauled off at half-time in only his fourth appearance for the club – a 2-2 home draw with Cambridge.

He never featured from the start for the Minstermen again – playing one half as a replacement for the injured Ingham during Worthington’s final game at Newport before being farmed out on loan to Alfreton by the latter’s successor Russ Wilcox, who then placed Mooney on the transfer list.

That paved the way for a July move to Stanley, where he has started every game this term, other than when he was rested for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

But, if the 6ft 9in Irishman bears a grudge, he is keeping tight-lipped and, despite the clubs occupying places at opposite ends of League Two, he is not under-estimating his one-time employers either, following the arrival of new chief McNamara.

“I’m just treating the game as normal - like any other we need to go and win,” Mooney suggested. “That’s the way I approach things.

“I know there’s still a good bunch of players at York and the fresh management team coming in could give them a boost. Michael Coulson will be a threat.

“I would have had Luke Summerfield down as a danger as well if he was available because he is one of the more creative players but York are always going to be strong at set-plays too if the likes of Dave Winfield, Keith Lowe and John McCombe are involved, so we will have to keep an eye on that.”

Mooney has no axe to grind with Worthington or Wilcox either, despite suffering the ignominy of being substituted at half-time by the former and then never getting a first-team chance under the latter, who cut short his impressive spell with Alfreton at a crucial moment in the Conference club’s ultimately unsuccessful fight against relegation when Bobby Olejnik got suspended for the Minstermen.

“Everyone deals with things differently,” he reasoned. “I didn’t have much experience and I wasn’t playing my best when I was in the team at the start of last season, so the gaffer and goalkeeping coach at the time decided the best thing to do was take me out of the team and see where things went from there.

“It was very frustrating but that can be the case with any job in life. I then went on loan to Alfreton and rediscovered myself and that was the best part of my season.

“At the time, Alfreton only needed a couple of results to stay up but the gaffer at York had to do what he thought was for the best and I just had to bite my tongue and swallow that. I didn’t get to play under him but he saw me training hard every day, so maybe he didn’t like what he saw in training.”

With one door firmly closed, though, another one was barged open by the 26-year-old giant when Coleman handed him the chance to resurrect his career.

“Before I came back for pre-season at York, I’d heard Accrington might be interested,” Mooney explained. “They ended up signing two keepers – myself and Ross Etheridge.

“We were told to come in and fight it out and that there was no number one really. I was lucky enough to be given my chance and, in the gaffer’s eyes, I must have done well since, so I can’t complain.”

As the bookmakers’ perennial favourites for relegation, unfashionable Stanley, with the lowest home attendances in the Football League, have raised eyebrows with their position among the League Two frontrunners but Mooney is not shocked by the club’s lofty position, arguing: “I don’t think we’re overachieving even though I’m aware that people are saying that.

“Maybe we are budget-wise, but we know that with the players we have got we can push any team on our day and it’s no surprise, to me, where we are in the table. As soon as we started pre-season, there was a positive vibe about the place.

“The new players, including myself, bought into the way the gaffer runs things straight away. We have talent in the squad but it’s made clear that has to go hand-in-hand with hard work.”

Mooney will not be the only familiar face at Stanley this afternoon with last season’s on-loan City right-back Brad Halliday currently playing for Coleman’s team on the same terms from parent club Middlesbrough.

“Brad’s doing very well,” Mooney said of the 20-year-old defender. “Everyone at York knows he’s a good player, so that will be no surprise to them.”

For Mooney, meanwhile, he will be out to compensate for past FA Cup disappointment against his old club.

“The only time I’ve played in the competition was during the preliminary rounds for Oxford City in 2011,” he revealed. “We won a couple of big ties to reach the first round proper and we drew Redbridge so we had a great chance of getting through but I was injured for that game and we ended up getting beaten.”