It is difficult to know what Albion can expect from Stoke at the Britannia Stadium tomorrow.

They are the Jekyll and Hyde outfit of the Championship.

City have lost as many games (nine) as rock-bottom Millwall, yet they have also won more (seven) than anyone outside the top six.

The one thing the Seagulls cannot anticipate is another draw.

Stoke have shared the points only once all season, at home to Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day.

Will the team turn up that beat Preston away, Luton at home and came from behind to win at Coventry on Wednesday?

Or will it be the side that has lost half of their home games, all be it against opponents currently in the top ten?

Stoke are very different, both in terms of personnel and style of play, under Johan Boskamp compared to the solid but unspectacular line-up Tony Pulis steered to 12th place last season.

Pulis, now at Plymouth, was controversially axed in late summer by the club's Icelandic owners because of his reluctance to buy foreign players.

The affable Boskamp, a member of the Dutch squad which finished runners-up to Argentina in the 1978 World Cup, has adopted a far more cosmopolitan outlook.

He splashed out a club record £900,000 to land Guinea international centre forward Sambegou Bangoura from Belgian club Standard Liege.

Bangoura has made an eventful start to his career in English football. He missed the first month of the season due to international commitments and work permit problems, then was arrested on his arrival at Nottingham airport on suspicion of helping someone enter the country illegally.

Bangoura was cleared of all charges and celebrated by scoring on his full debut against neighbours Crewe.

Gerry Taggart was the unliklely instigator of Stoke's comeback at Coventry.

The 35-year-old stopper, recalled from coaching in Holland because of Stoke's defensive suspension problems, equalised against Micky Adams' strugglers with a sweetly-struck low drive.

Scottish under-21 international Paul Gallagher, on a season-long loan from Blackburn Rovers, curled a superb winner early in the second half to ease Stoke back into mid-table and improve a dismal run of six defeats in seven games which had dropped them from fourth to 16th.

Boskamp's assistant Jan De Koning said: "I was very pleased for Gerry. He never shoots at goal in training but it was a fantastic strike.

"Gerry knows he can't play all the games any more.

He felt his legs at half-time but because we were winning he kept on playing.

"He organises everything and you always know Gerry is in the dressing room. He's very demanding of his own players but he had a word for them all at the end. He was very happy.

"It's normal when you've lost that many games for the confidence to be a bit low and when they scored the heads went down, but (Dave) Brammer and (Darel) Russell did a fantastic job in midfield."

Taggart could be putting his feet up tomorrow as Michael Duberry is available after a three-match ban.

Fellow centre half Marlon Broomes, who scored a decisive own goal for Preston at Withdean last season, is suspended after collecting Stoke's sixth red card of the campaign in last Saturday's defeat at Southampton.

The club's hierarchy were infuriated this week when an appeal to the FA against Broomes' dismissal for throwing out an arm at Saints' goalscorer Theo Walcott resulted in his punishment being increased from a three-match ban to four.

Director of football John Rudge described the decision as "scandalous", adding: "The FA have clearly done this to dissuade clubs from appealing against any old red card but we are not in the habit of making frivolous appeals.

"We decided not to appeal against Michael Duberry's red card against Crewe because his elbow was high, even if he didn't mean any trouble. But Marlon's claim was one we felt justified.

"We believe the match video backed us up, and Southampton manager Harry Redknapp said after the game it was not a sending off."

Stoke are expecting a bigger crowd than would have been the case tomorrow.

They have slashed admission prices for home fans as part of a special Bonfire Night package