'Stop the bickering' ... Darragh MacAnthony delivers message about Rotherham United's Peter Kioso

MacAnthony's League One Peterborough United had the right-back on loan from the Championship Millers for the first half of the season until the player was recalled to AESSEAL New York season at the start of this month.

Posh would have loved to have kept the 24-year-old and a section of their supporters have used X to say the defender would rather have remained in Cambridgeshire for a promotion push than go back to South Yorkshire for a survival battle.

“I would ask our fans to stop winding Rotherham fans up about ‘PK’,” MacAnthony said. “I'm not having a dig at them as I know they enjoy the banter, but sometimes this sort of thing doesn't help.

“I don't like it when people speak about other club's players. If someone was doing it about our players, I'd get the hump.

“PK is a Rotherham player and I have a lot of respect for the chairman and directors of that club. I go back a long way with Tony Stewart and I wish Rotherham all the best and hope they do well and stay up.”

Kioso's first chance of Millers action came last weekend at home to Stoke City, but his name wasn't on the team sheet, with boss Leam Richardson citing illness as the reason.

Rotherham are at Middlesbrough on Saturday and the head coach has said the defender will be in the squad if he has sufficiently recovered.