Derby County injury news vs Stoke City as John Eustace sweats on duo and six ruled out

John Eustace is waiting to see if left-back Callum Elder and midfielder Jeff Hendrick can win a race to fitness in time to feature for Derby County against Stoke City. Elder, aged 30, has been unavailable since suffering a bang on his knee during a win over Preston North End back on April 2 but Eustace has refused to rule him out for the season and he could return against Stoke on Saturday (12.30pm).

Hendrick, aged 33, took a knock to his calf and missed last weekend's win at Hull but is hoping to be available this time around. Eustace, however, is without Ryan Nyambe (hamstring), Lars-Jorgen Salvesen (knee), David Ozoh (thigh), Dajuane Brown (hamstring), Stoke youth graduate Curtis Nelson (ACL) and goalkeeper Jacob Widell Zetterstrom (cheek), Former Stoke defender Erik Pieters, who signed as an emergency option a month ago, has been an unused substitute on seven occasions so far for Eustace. Both Stoke and Derby go into the game knowing that a win would keep either side in the Championship.



Stoke also know that a draw would be enough. That would be the case for Derby too unless all three of Preston North End, Luton Town and Hull City win at Bristol City, West Brom and Portsmouth respectively. Neither Stoke nor Derby would be automatically condemned with defeat but they would be sweating on other results.

Derby have won their last two games, at West Brom and Hull, to stay out of the bottom three for this final showdown. In the Stoke camp, Sol Sidibe has returned to action with an appearance for the under-21s against Notts County on Tuesday afternoon after three months nursing a back injury. Updates are expected later in the week on Ben Pearson and Junior Tchamadeu, who both came off during last Friday's game against Sheffield United.

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