BLACKBURN Rovers defender Simon Grayson has a double incentive to help his temporary club to victory over Burnley tonight.

Grayson is currently on loan from Rovers to Stockport County who are fighting for their lives near the bottom of Division One.

The former Aston Villa and Leicester City full-back is an integral part of the survival set-up with a win over the Clarets certain to keep County clear of the bottom three.

And that in turn will increase the liklihood of Grayson, who will return to the starting line-up against Burnley following a one-match ban which kept him out of Saturday's 2-2 against Wimbledon, making a permanent switch to Edgeley Park.

The 31-year-old Yorkshireman has half-a-dozen games left in his three-month loan deal and will consider a permanent move if County look to be winning their fight for survival.

He said: "Nobody really wants to play Second Division football and I'm no different to that. It's important that we stay up. It's a good set-up, they are a good set of lads and I think they deserve to stay up.

"We've just got to make sure that when we play the teams that are down there we win those games. There's a lot of games to go and with everyone playing each other there are points to be won and lost."

Burnley are well clear of the dogfight but Stockport could still do themselves a big favour by beating the Clarets to register their first League win since New Year's Day.

Despite that record it's not all doom and gloom for the Hatters with just two League defeats in their current run, together with FA Cup wins at Preston and Crewe.

But having had to share the spoils nine times at home, it's clear where there's room for improvement. Grayson said: "That's been the problem ever since I've been here, and probably for the majority of the season.

"They've drawn something like 15 or16 games and if we had won just for our five of those we would have been towards the middle of the division and out of trouble.

"At least when you're drawing games you're not losing and you are picking up points. But the main objective is to start turning a few of those draws into wins.

"Because the division is so tight you only need to win two or three to get out of trouble. Barnsley have won three and they are about 12th in the table."

Burnley have been far from prolific away from home in recent times but Grayson knows enough about the Clarets to expect no easy ride.

He added: "Being at Blackburn you see a lot of the local press and I don't live too far away from Burnley. Their form has dipped a bit since Christmas but they had a very good start and they are a hard working team, which has been drilled into them by Stan Ternent.

"They will be looking to bounce back and their away form hasn't been too good but if you had asked them at the start of the season if they would have taken this position they would have definitely said yes.

"It will be a difficult game but it's one we're looking forward to and one we feel we can win."

Grayson and skipper Mike Flynn will be back to stiffen up the County defence with the pair charged with keeping tabs on Gareth Taylor and former Stockport goalscorer Ian Moore.

"They have a lot of quality players and experienced players and it's going to be a test for us.

"But if we can keep their front two quiet hopefully with our attacking players we can get goals, although I think it's going to be a tight game," Grayson added.