RETURNING to Middlesbrough and the Riverside is always special for proud Teessider Ben Gibson - but even more so today.

For this afternoon, the former Boro defender and now Stoke City captain will make his 400th professional appearance.

His first came 13 years ago as a substitute for Tony Mowbray's Boro in a 2-1 home win over Coventry City.

He would go on to win promotion with his boyhood club, before eventually leaving for Burnley. That move didn't go to plan for Gibson, but he got back on track at Norwich City before joining Stoke in the summer.

He's quickly established himself as a key figure for the Potters - and on what will be an immensely proud afternoon for Gibson, it will be made all the more special for the defender and his family coming at the Riverside.

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"I remember being at Middlesbrough as a kid and I would have snapped your hand off to play one game for them," the defender told the Stoke Sentinel this week.

"That was my dream. Some people say they knew they were going to be a top league player but until you’ve done it you don’t know.

"I was comparing myself to players who had gone through the academy before, like Jonathan Woodgate or Stewart Downing and you could never really get a true reflection of where you were and what it really took to be a professional footballer.

"To go back there, where I’ve got amazing memories, as captain of this football club is the biggest honour for me, and to reach 400 games is fantastic but, if I’m being honest, all I’m focused on is trying to win the game.

"I want to win for me, I want to win for us, for the new manager so he can get properly underway.”

Gibson says Stoke's players need to take responsibility after Steven Schumacher's exit but the centre-half is excited after the arrival of Narcis Pelach, who he knows from Norwich.

He said: “It’s never nice and as players you have to take ownership of that. I’d only experienced the old manager for a short period of time but as a player and as his captain you have to look at yourself and ultimately we hadn’t done a good enough job on the pitch.

“But now we’ve made the decision to go in this direction I’m really excited to work with him. I know what he’ll bring. I could see when I worked with him before that he was always going to be a head coach or manager, there was always a natural progression. It wasn’t a matter of if, it was just a case of when. I’m delighted he’s here.

“With the young squad we have he’ll improve players, he’ll improve the team. The results will hopefully come quickly, hopefully they’ll come straightaway. There’s obviously going to be a huge emphasis on the different style of play and the club is going in a direction it hasn’t in the past but, whether we like it or not, the facts are that as a club we haven’t got the results or finished in the positions that its wanted to. I couldn’t be more convinced he’ll be the manager to turn that fortune around.”