Sky Sports presenter David Prutton has offered his latest set of predictions for this weekend's Sky Bet Championship action and he is foreseeing a tight game between Derby County and Stoke City.

The Rams are still down the wrong end of the table but have shown a little bit of grit and resilience in recent matches, which may well be helping Wayne Rooney's bid to become permanent manager.

Stoke, meanwhile, are looking like play-off contenders but lost in the week to an in-form Cardiff City and will be aiming to bounce back.

For Prutton, though, it is set to be case of the spoils being shared at Pride Park.

He said, via Sky Sports:

"Derby are in a strange position. They are still unbeaten since Wayne Rooney took over properly as interim manager, and it looks a little like things are moving incrementally in the right direction.

"Stoke won't believe how they lost to Cardiff in midweek. But they have twice as many points than at the same stage last season, which shows how far they have come under Michael O'Neill. I'll back a draw here. 1-1."

The Verdict

A draw might not be the most unlikely thing to happen here.

Derby have been harder to beat in recent matches and that will please Rooney - he'll now, naturally, want to see them scoring more goals and winning games to get them climbing the table.

Stoke, meanwhile, will be looking to bounce back from that Cardiff loss but sometimes a point is a good result in the second tier and we'll just have to see how this one plays out.

Regardless of result, though, you get the feeling that there won't be too much in it.