Derby and Stoke will both play Championship football again next season
Derby County and Stoke City both avoided relegation from the Championship with an anticlimactic goalless draw on a day of relief at Pride Park.
Both sides had their places in the second tier assured after Luton Town were thrashed 5-3 by West Bromwich Albion to go down.
In a tense first half of few opportunities, Viktor Johansson stopped Sondre Langas from giving the hosts the lead by tipping a header from the Norway international around the post.
Rams goalkeeper Josh Vickers made a brilliant save to keep Ali Al-Hamadi out early in the second half, while Jerry Yates had a close-range effort saved late on before both he and Nat Phillips hit the crossbar after the ball fell back into their paths.
The draw means Mark Robins' Stoke City finish four places and two points clear of the bottom three, while Derby have ended up a point above doomed Luton to avoid an immediate return to League One.
It completed a stunning turnaround for Derby under John Eustace, with the East Midlands club bottom of the table and seven points from safety less than two months ago.
Eustace left Blackburn Rovers when they were in the play-off places in February to parachute down the table to take charge of a Rams side batting relegation.
On his first day in the job he admitted he was taking a "huge risk".
In the Rams, the club where he retired as a player a decade ago, Eustace looked past the imminent danger of the drop and saw potential and ownership backing that he simply did not feel was there for him at Ewood Park.
Now with Eustace keeping Derby up, and with Blackburn missing out on the play-offs, the career gamble he took has appeared to have paid off, with both sides remaining in the same division.
Eustace came in as the permanent replacement for Paul Warne, Derby's League One promotion-winning boss, who was sacked in February after seven successive Championship losses.
Three defeats from as many games after his arrival had the Rams bottom of the table and seven points adrift of safety with 11 matches to play.
Six wins from 10 games after that meant their season would conclude with a potential relegation shootout with a Stoke side that tumbled into trouble after successive losses against Leeds United and Sheffield United.
The mood at Pride Park fluctuated repeatedly in the first half as news of other results filtered through.
There was hushed apprehension when they all appeared to be going against them, but by the time Luton went 3-1 down against West Brom both Rams and Potters fans chanted "we are staying in" in unison.
Derby went closest to giving their fans something more to roar about before the break, with Langas having a header saved by Johansson before the Norwegian wastefully prodded a chance over the bar from the resulting corner.
While a draw suited both sides, they came out after the break intent on breaking the deadlock
Harrison Armstrong tested Johansson with an effort from distance at the start of the second half, while Al-Hamadi forced Vickers into a sprawling save minutes later.
Both sides had scrambled chances after that to finish the season victorious, with the best of them seeing the woodwork hit twice as the hosts were denied with four minutes remaining.
'Job done' - reaction
Derby County head coach John Eustace told BBC Radio Derby:
"The job's done and that's the most important thing.
"What a fantastic effort from everyone connected with the football club. The players have been outstanding every day in training, they have dedicated themselves to getting to this moment and I couldn't be any more proud of them.
"The fans, home and away have been outstanding as well. During some really difficult moments no-one stopped believing and if you believe in what you are doing you always have a chance. And here we are with us still in the Championship."
Stoke City boss Mark Robins said:
"It was a rubbish game but we both ended up getting what we needed, so that is the most important thing.
"The game was so lacking in quality it's frightening, but understandable in the circumstances.
"The players managed themselves really well during the week and managed themselves through the game well today.
"Since I came in [to Stoke] in January, it has been a really tough period - I think one of the toughest of my career. It has been really difficult because I'm the third permanent manager and fourth voice they have had.
"It's been a lot of upheaval. This team should never have been anywhere near the bottom, it's a mid-table team at worst. And had everyone been fit and we'd been in earlier, things wouldn't have got down to this day.
"But thankfully we have managed to come out the other side OK."
