Hull City can be energised by Greg Docherty's return from injury, says Shota Arveladze

The 26-year-old has not featured since the season’s opener after tearing a quad muscle but is back ahead of schedule to face the Potters.

His inclusion in the squad for Tuesday's game could be significant. The Tigers have signed plenty of exciting attacking players from abroad –with Colombian centre-forward Oscar Estupinan named Championship player of the month for August – but few with experience of English football. And Docherty, in his third season in East Yorkshire is, unafraid to do the dirty work.

"You definitely see how much Doc has brought in previous seasons, how much energy he can bring to the team," said coach Arveladze.

"He's been out quite a long time, unfortunately.

"He really tried his best to come back. Some medical reports might suggest another ten days or two weeks but he was desperate to return. It gives options to us to add an extra experienced player and be stronger."

Arveladze, whose side lost three of its previous four matches, is unconcerned about easing him back.

"He trained the last two days with us and I haven't heard about any bad reactions," he said.

"I don't think we have to be cautious with him. He's passed all the tests so I don't think there's any risk to have him on the field.

"He's not someone who is always thinking about injury. There was a time when we had to stop him doing more because he didn't feel much (discomfort) but although he was clinically quite good, if you checked the MRI or looked into his injury past they would always say he needed more time to be more safe."

Preparations have been unusual but perhaps not unhelpful. The squad had a wasted journey to Cardiff last weekend with their match postponed late on Friday morning but the extra time together could be beneficial for a squad with 16 summer signings to assimilate.

Hull are due back in Wales to face Swansea City this Saturday, providing the police and local safety advisory group are happy to sign the game off two days before Queen Elizabeth II's funeral.

"It was great, we went to Cardiff!" said Arveladze. "It's a nice place, a nice city. I hadn't been there since ‘95.

"We saw a good complex, trained there and came back.

"What happened, happened. It's very sad of course. We all just understand the situation and act as we have to.

"We came back home after having a (training) session and a rest on Sunday like normal, then it was back again to the job on Monday. We will see if the free weekend was a good thing."

Another complication to preparations is that Stoke's manager Alex Neil has only been in charge for two matches but Arveladze has noticed changes in approach already.

"They changed their way of playing a little bit," he commented. "You could see in the last two games they tried to be be different in the build-up, different ideas, they pulled their centre-backs out and asked their strikers to do things in a little bit different way. The new coach is trying to put his own changes on them."

As of Monday morning, Hull had sold around 15,000 tickets for the gam.

Last six games: Hull City WDLWLL; Stoke City LDLWDLReferee: L Doughty (Lancashire)Last time: Hull City 0 Stoke City 2, January 16, 2022, Championship