Team news from the Riverside Stadium as Stoke City take on Middlesbrough in the Championship
Narcis Pelach has named the same starting XI as Stoke City take on Middlesbrough at the Riverside.
Pelach has kept faith with the same side he named on Friday last week when they started brightly but faded at home against Hull City. It is likely to be a 4-4-2-come-4-2-4 with Lewis Koumas and Bae Junho flanking Tom Cannon and Million Manhoef.
Viktor Johansson starts in goal behind a back four of Junior Tchamadeu, Eric Bocat, Ben Wilmot and Ben Gibson. It’s Jordan Thompson, and Wouter Burger in central midfield. Pelach has enjoyed his first full week of training at Clayton Wood and hopes to see progress in terms of the structure he is trying to install into the team.
Summer signing Sam Gallagher makes the squad for the first time after recovering from a calf strain picked up in the final friendly of pre-season while Andrew Moran is back from illness and Andre Vidigal is back in favour.
Pelach said in his pre-match press conference: “I want the fans to see what they saw in the first 35. A very organised team defensively, when we are in a block, everyone is compact and together but on the front foot and trying to go high and trying to press. I think the first 30 minutes were very positive in this. Players wanted to make things happen and that’s very important to me. We couldn’t sustain the energy or maintain the energy and of course a three-game week didn’t help because we didn’t have all the changes we wanted but that’s going to be different already this weekend, for example.
“Defensively I want to see this front foot team, aggressive but always with good organisation, not just chasing for the sake of chasing.
“Offensively I think we saw a little bit of how the team wanted to play from the back, having possession, playing forward and being very positive, playing inside. We will try to be a dominant team of course. Stoke City haven’t been this for the last years and it will take time to build because we are telling players to do the opposite, not to go that fast, trying to build momentum to win the game by having possession. Players want to do it, they are really excited about this and training has gone very well in that respect. We are going to try to change the whole thing, basically, and it will take time but it’s a process. We just need to be calm and work, work, work.”
Stoke: Johansson, Tchamadeu, Bocat, Gibson, Wilmot, Thompson, Burger, Koumas, Junho, Manhoef, Cannon. Subs: Bonham, Rose, Stevens, Seko, Moran, Sidibe, Vidigal, Tezgel, Gallagher.
