Moore keen to aid faltering Wednesday

The Rotherham United manager, Ronnie Moore, has two reasons for wanting to beat Stoke City tonight – securing another three points and helping the Millers' South Yorkshire rivals, Sheffield Wednesday, to avoid the drop.

Stoke are just three points and two places above the bottom-of-the-table Owls, and Moore wants to do everything he can to keep Chris Turner's team in the division – for purely selfish reasons.

"If you ask me which I prefer – Wednesday to be relegated or to stay up – I'd have to say staying up," said Moore. "That might not be the view of plenty of our fans but I have another take on things aside of rivalry.

"If we lose Wednesday from our fixture list next season then we can count the cost. Their visit to Millmoor guarantees us a full house and that's good money to this football club. Without them we lose that income. We lost Barnsley last season and if Sheffield United were to go into the Premiership then we lose another full house and there'd be none of those dozen First Division derbies we had in South Yorkshire last season."

Rotherham have the defenders Martin McIntosh and Guy Branston available for the trip to the Britannia Stadium after their suspensions while the striker Mark Robins has reported fit after missing the game at Wolverhampton Wanderers with a twisted ankle.

Stoke will be without the on-loan striker Ade Akinbiyi after he broke down on his debut against Gillingham on Saturday with a hamstring injury.

"It's severe," Stoke's director of football, John Rudge, said. "He is having treatment but there is no way he will be fit to play against Rotherham and it is a little too early to say for definite what his chances may be for the weekend."

In the Third Division, the Wrexham winger Paul Edwards (ankle) and Steve Roberts (jaw) will be given as long as possible to recover before manager Denis Smith names his team to face their local rivals Shrewsbury at Gay Meadow, where a victory would lift them into third place.

Mark Atkins has been ruled out for the Shrews for the rest of the season after surgery revealed knee cartilage damage while the winger Ian Woan is receiving treatment for an injured abductor muscle at former club Nottingham Forest and faces a late fitness test.

* Coventry City have confirmed the goalkeeper Morten Hyldgaard has been dropped so the club can avoid paying a £100,000 transfer bill. Hyldgaard was a £200,000 buy from the Danish club Ikast in December 1998 in a deal which stipulated £100,000 would be due when he made his 35th first-team appearance. With four games to go until that landmark is reached, the Sky Blues decided they could not afford to pay.