NEW Stoke boss Narcis Pelach has stressed to his players the importance of defensive solidity and organisation at Middlesbrough - but insists his side will be "brave" at the Riverside.

The Spaniard is preparing to take charge of the Potters for just the second time after his debut in the dugout ended in a 3-1 defeat to Hull City.

Pelach has spent the first week and a half in charge drilling his way of playing to his squad and has promised high energy from Stoke going forward.

But he accepts the visitors won't see as much of the ball as he'd like at Middlesbrough. That raises the obvious question: will Stoke follow in the footsteps of several of Boro's recent opponents and sit deep in a bid to frustrate Michael Carrick's side.

Pelach admits his side will need to be compact, well organised and defensively resilient at the Riverside, which suggests more of the same for Boro.

But the visiting boss also wants his side to be brave and says "we will try to do what we want to do".

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"Away from home against the second team in the Championship in terms of ball possession, even more than Hull, we will need to defend at times," Pelach told Stoke on Trent Live.

"We will need to be together, we will need to get close to each other, we will need to accept moments of the game with good resilience, good attitudes and accept that maybe we won’t have the ball as much as we want.

"But we will be brave as well and we will go there with all the respect for them but we believe in ourselves as well and we will try to do what we want to. I want to respect our style and idea and make it about us. That’s my mentality."

Moving forward, Pelach wants his side to dominate games.

"Offensively I think we saw (against Hull) a little bit of how the team wanted to play from the back, having possession, playing forward and being very positive, playing inside," he said.

"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."

Pelach also confirmed that Sam Gallagher - who has scored two goals in his last three visits to the Riverside with Blackburn - is set to be involved.

The striker hasn't yet featured for Stoke since his summer arrival from Rovers.

Pelach said: "Sam Gallagher trained this week. He’s not at his best level from a physical point of view, of course, having spent weeks out but he’s ready to come back and he’ll be involved.

"The minutes are limited for him of course but I expect to see him and if he’s needed to play and help the team he will do it."