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Mark Robins has confidence that Ethan Galbraith “will get better and better” as he prepares to make his Stoke City league debut against the club that sold him. Galbraith is expected to start in central midfield for Stoke on Saturday afternoon (3pm) against Swansea at the bet365 Stadium. He had joined Swansea last summer from Leyton Orient and subsequently demonstrated a level of performance that Stoke believe set him out as one of the leading midfielders in the Championship. The 25-year-old Northern Ireland international missed a couple of weeks of pre-season as an injury precaution but helped the Potters to a 2-0 Carabao Cup win over Oldham last weekend – and he is already starting to show his potential to his new boss. FOLLOW OUR FACEBOOK PAGE! Latest Stoke City news, analysis and more via the Sentinel “It’s early days with us because a change of club is a big thing for anybody,” said Robins. “I think that came out of the blue for him – and for us. He is a talented, really talented, player and someone who will get better and better. “I think he had a lay-off at the end of last season so it took him a bit of time to really get going. He’s had a bit of a lay off here, but he’s starting to look like the player we know he’s going to be.” He added: “I’ve not even mentioned it to him (the relevance of it being against Swansea). I just look at what we’re doing collectively in training. “You’ll have to ask Ethan whether he’s looking forward to it and I’m sure he is, pulling a Stoke City shirt on in front of the home fans for the first time in the league.” Robins is expecting a testing but interesting afternoon against a Swansea side that will try to dominate possession in front of what should be a healthy home crowd. He said: “It’s our first game, at home, we want to win, playing against a Swansea team, they had a really strong finish to last season and they’ve had a decent pre-season. They’ve added players and they’ve obviously lost Ethan to us but they’ve been able to strengthen. It’ll be a really interesting game, a really interesting start. Ben Wilmot, another former Swansea player, is on standby to start at right-back while Junior Tchamadeu continues his recovery from a hamstring injury. Wilmot, aged 26, was captain last season but has handed over the armband to Viktor Johansson this time around – and taken that decision in his stride. Robins said: “Typical Ben. This isn’t something being taken away from him. The reason I gave him the armband was to give him some confidence in terms of his communication, which he’s taken on and you can see there’s a difference. “Viktor is a new, old captain because he’s captained us for a period before. He epitomises everything that is good. That isn’t a criticism of Ben by any stretch because I felt he did well in difficult circumstances last season. He captained us to a really good start, the best start for a long time in a Championship season. There were a lot of good elements there. “Viktor is vocal in the dressing room, vocal in team meetings and demonstrates by his behaviour the sort of characteristics you want from a captain of Stoke City.” How should Stoke line up vs Swansea? Click HERE to join the debate