Narcis Pelach confirms Stoke City coaching team as old boy returns
Narcis Pelach is bringing two new faces and an old boy to Stoke City as he is confirmed as new head coach.
Pelach, who watched Stoke beat Fleetwood in the Carabao Cup last night, has been appointed this afternoon with a big task of bringing success back to the bet365 Stadium.
He is joined by coach Paul Clements, who he has worked with at Norwich and Huddersfield. Clements had worked at Wolves before then and was described by Norwich last year as "one of the top young coaches in the country".
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He has worked with former Stoke loan keeper Angus Gunn at Carrow Road and Gunn said only last month: "He's definitely taken my game to the next level. We work really hard during the week. At times last season it felt like the games were, not easy, but natural because of the work that we'd done during the week.
"He always prepares us for the opposition that we're going to face and I think that detail has made it a lot easier for me to go into the games and feel that confidence."
Performance analyst Harrison Glew has also worked with Pelach at Norwich and Huddersfield after studying at Loughborough University and the University of Huddersfield.
Dean Whitehead also has big Huddersfield connections and worked under David Wagner but he is more familiar in these parts for his role as a player in Stoke's Premier League midfield under Tony Pulis. He made 160 appearances in all from 2009 to 2013 and he helped Stoke reach the 2011 FA Cup final.
His coaching career has also included spells at Shrewsbury Town, across the city at Port Vale - who he helped win promotion to League One, Besiktas in Turkey alongside Valerien Ismael, Cardiff and Watford and he joins Stoke from Barnsley, where he had been reunited with his old Vale boss Darrell Clarke.
They join Alex Morris at Clayton Wood. Morris moved permanently over to the first team set-up in the summer after joining 12 months previously as under-21s lead coach with added responsibility for building a bridge to the seniors. Keeper coach Darren Behcet has stayed too, with high regard for his work within the club. Roles may be clarified in the coming days.
Steven Schumacher's coaches Mark Hughes, Chris Cohen and Peter Cavanagh as well as head of performance Elliot Turner all left on Monday.