Sky Sports pundit shares his prediction for Preston vs Stoke City | OneFootball

David Prutton has backed Stoke City to continue their strong start to the season with a narrow victory against Preston tonight.

Michael O’Neill’s side currently sit in the play-off places, and they are just two points away from the automatic promotion places going into the fixture at Deepdale.

However, it won’t be easy against a North End side that are unbeaten in six, even if they have drawn four successive games, including a 0-0 against Birmingham City last time out.

But, writing in his regularly Sky Sports column, the former Nottingham Forest midfielder has backed the Potters to take maximum points with a narrow 2-1 victory against Frankie McAvoy’s men.

Even though Stoke have started well on the whole, they have collected just four points from four games on the road, whilst Preston haven’t lost at home since the opening day, when they were comfortably beaten by Hull.

The Staffordshire outfit can also take encouragement from the fact that they did win this fixture 1-0 last season thanks to a Lee Gregory goal.

20 quiz questions about Stoke City’s 2021/22 season so far – Can you score full marks?

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How many goals did Stoke's first game have?

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The verdict

There won’t be many who disagree with Prutton that it should be a tight game and you wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was decided by a single goal.

Stoke have done very well this season but, as mentioned, they haven’t shone away from home and even at this early stage it’s something that will need to be addressed moving forward if they are to be serious promotion contenders.

From Preston’s perspective, they need to start turning draws into wins but it’s clearly going to be a very tough game tonight.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.