Doncaster Rovers v Leicester City: Time now right for Rovers to try and reach next level

The former Everton and Sunderland winger is keen to stay at the Keepmoat Stadium next season and feels the opportunity is there to join the game's elite.

Rovers, who were playing Conference football just seven years ago, are currently on the fringes of the Championship promotion race and a victory over sixth-placed Leicester City tonight will lift the club to within five points of the play-off zone with 14 games to go.

Welsh international Oster said: "It would be nice to play in the Premier League again and you just never know what can happen. No-one expected Burnley to go up last season and this year is offering as good a chance as any for a club like us."

Oster, 32, has enjoyed a new lease of life with Rovers this season but fears manager Sean O'Driscoll may only be able to take the club so far under the current wage restrictions.

"I am not expecting people to throw in money and go stupid," he said. "Obviously, we have to be sensible – but you can't keep expecting the manager to find players from lower league teams who can perform in this division.

"Everyone at the club, from top to bottom, has to realise where we are now. For us to get onto the next level, things like the wage structure have to increase."

Oster's first club, Grimsby Town, spent five years defying the odds in the Championship during the Nineties but are now fighting to stay in the Football League.

While he insists there is far greater potential at Rovers, Oster does not want his current club to make the mistakes that led to the decline at Blundell Park.

"Unless the chairman loosens the purse strings, it is going to be a difficult one for the manager," he said. "At the end of the day, it will come to a head and, sooner or later, you are going to find yourself struggling again. That's not what we want.

"It was never going to be right, financially, for Grimsby to kick on and get in the play-offs. They were punching above their weight and they only got 4,000 supporters every week," he said.

"But this club is on a better stepping stone to reach the next level and that's what we hope to achieve. While we are doing okay, and trying to push on, that is the time when we should be trying to improve things."

Chairman John Ryan invested around 6m of his own money to drag Rovers back to the second tier of English football but, two years ago, made it clear that the club now had to live within its own means.

He has recently been exploring the possibility of buying the Keepmoat Stadium from the local council and this may also have an affect on money being made available for team-strengthening.

Former Rovers midfielder Richie Wellens was sold to Leicester last summer for a fee rising to 1.2m and is set to make his first return to the Keepmoat Stadium tonight.

Rovers also raised 2m via the sale of defender Matthew Mills to Reading in August but manager O'Driscoll takes a pragmatic view towards the club's financial situation.

"If we had kept Richie and Matt Mills – and added one or two – we would have been a real force in this division," O'Driscoll admitted yesterday.

"But look what is happening in football – teams are paying out money that they either can't afford or haven't got.

"This club is a well-run club and that is testiment to the people that run it," he stressed.

"The way football is going at the moment, more clubs that are well-run will be successful in the long term."

Rovers suffered a disappointing 2-1 defeat against Queens Park Rangers at the weekend with O'Driscoll labelling the performance 'awful'.

"Our results have been better but our level of performances have struggled, at times, to find the level we had last season," he said.

"However, with better results, it means we have improved in a different way."

Midfielder Brian Stock will struggle to be fit for tonight's game due to a back problem while Shelton Martis, Jason Shackell, Martin Woods, Adam Lockwood, Byron Webster, and Steve Brooker are still ruled out.

The two clubs fought out a goalless draw at the Walkers Stadium just a fortnight ago and Leicester are now unbeaten in six games.

Last six games: Rovers LLDWWL, Leicester DWDWDD

Last time: Rovers 0 Leicester 0; February 9, 2010, Championship.

Referee: KA Woolmer (Northamptonshire)