Mark Bowen has hailed the qualities he believes Mark Hughes will bring to Stoke ahead of the new season.
Bowen has moved to the Potters as assistant manager together with first-team coach Eddie Niedzwiecki and will welcome the squad back for pre-season training on July 8th.
And Bowen, who has worked with Hughes at Blackburn, Manchester City, Fulham and QPR, is relishing the chance to ply his trade in the top-flight again.
"First and foremost, Mark is a friend. We've known each other since we were 12 or 13 years old, a very long time," said Bowen.
"What qualities does he bring to the job? He's an excellent tactician and coach; he knows what he wants but at the same time, I wouldn't call him a person who adopts a 'my way or the highway' approach.
"He's very much open to different opinions. If somebody brings something to the table that he likes, he will take it on board.
"We've spoken to one or two of the players. Jonathan Walters popped into the building the other day and we spoke to him and we got a really good reaction from him.
"We work on intensity and demand things on the training ground but good pros always embrace it - it's only the ones who are not such good pros who react badly to it. We demand high standards from the players all the time."
Bowen: "Everybody knows Stoke's players but we're trying to go into a little bit more detail about them. We've been watching a lot of clips of them and talking to people."
Chesterfield are keen to sign the centre-half while League Two rivals Fleetwood, who have had a bid rejected, and York are also interested.
Rotherham-born Cresswell has a year remaining on his contract at Roots Hall but is eager to return closer to home and Chesterfield is his preferred destination.
The 25-year-old reported back for pre-season training on Monday along with the rest of the Shrimpers squad when Brown took the opportunity to try to convince one of his prized assets to remain with the Essex club.
An optimistic Brown told the Southend Echo: "Ryan sat down with myself, Dave Penney and Graham Coughlan to have a chat about things and he seemed interested in what we had to say to him.
"He could see that we had a very good backroom team now in place and the work which had also been done at the training ground to make it look much better.
"He wanted to know what players we were looking to bring in so we spoke about our transfer targets and who we wanted to bring to the football club.
"He seemed very receptive and now one of my main aims is to make Ryan want to stay with us because he's a good player and would be a big part of the team next season."
It has been suggested that Chesterfield might try to use Sam Togwell as a make-weight in a deal for Cresswell but Brown insists he is not interested in the Spireites midfielder.
He added: "I think that's maybe something Chesterfield have suggested but it's not something I would be interested in doing."
