Tony Pulis sacked Ian Holloway as his babysitter when they were at Bristol Rovers together for keeping the children up too late - now he could get him dismissed as a manager. Stoke City's impending promotion from the Coca-Cola Championship could result in Leicester City's relegation.

Stoke need only a point when the teams meet tomorrow to ensure that they graduate to the Barclays Premier League, which would complete their manager's set of promotions from every division, and Pulis is putting friendships to one side as he urges his players to go for the title.

The pressure is off West Bromwich Albion, the leaders, who play away to Queens Park Rangers already assured of promotion. At the bottom end of the table, Leicester need to win if they are to stay in charge of their destiny. Otherwise, on an afternoon for transistors and transformations, they will be at the mercy of others' results.

Holloway, a talkaholic, is godfather to Pulis's son, Anthony, a Stoke player, but it is another relationship that may be causing him more concern. He is at the mercy of Milan Mandaric, the Leicester chairman, who is already on his fifth manager in 15 months. Mandaric also sacked Pulis Sr at Portsmouth and waged a bitter compensation battle before they made up this season.

Once again, though, Pulis will not allow emotion to cloud his vision of taking Stoke into the top flight for the first time in 23 years. Mandaric, incidentally, will miss a Leicester game for the first time this season because he is in the United States on business.

“People fall out in life, but you have to be big enough to make up,” Pulis said. “When we played at Leicester earlier in the season, he invited Debbie [Pulis's wife] into the boardroom. He's a smashing man, a real football nut. But I'm only concerned with us getting promoted.

“Ian will understand that [sentiment cannot get in the way]. We'll be OK before the game, and OK after the game, but during the 90 minutes there'll be no quarter given. Ian first joined Bristol Rovers when he was about 12 years old and I was a pro.

“He's got a lot of bubble about him. Olly babysat for us when he was a youngster, but the trouble was he kept the kids up all hours with his stories and his jokes. Debs and I would be coming back in and they'd all still be up. So we had to sack him.”

Pulis has operated astutely in the transfer market, signing loan players such as Shola Ameobi, Stephen Pearson and Chris Riggott, who appear capable of making the step up to the top flight. Asked how many Premier League players he has, however, Pulis replied: “None, at the minute. They're all Championship players. Then they've got to prove themselves in the Premiership. But we've got to get over Sunday first.”

Stoke have been cast as the next Derby County, but there are some crucial differences. Everyone at the club is pulling in the same direction, contrasting with the civil war that broke out between Billy Davies, then Derby manager, and his employers this time 12 months ago.

“It's important to learn in life and to look at other situations and see what they have done and what they haven't done,” Pulis said. “There's people who I could and will speak to. But every level you play at, players have levels. If they were all great players, they'd all be at Manchester United.”

Pulis is taking nothing for granted, however, knowing that Leicester beat West Brom 4-1 at The Hawthorns recently. “There's a better spread in this division, with the money shared out more, so anyone's capable of beating anybody,” he said. “It's a great division. Perhaps the Premiership could learn from the Championship.”