Guardiola name-drops Tony Pulis and his Stoke City side of yore for the Premier League’s set-piece approach.
Tony Pulis’s Stoke inspired Premier League set-piece focus, says Guardiola.
According to Pep Guardiola, Premier League teams have been motivated to become more direct and prioritise set pieces by Tony Pulis’s Stoke team. The head coach of Manchester City says he won’t alter his beliefs, but he is willing to make Omar Marmoush and Erling Haaland a more traditional strike duo.
In the Carabao Cup fourth round, City will travel to Swansea on Wednesday night to play a Championship team that is keen to hold onto the ball. In the Premier League, long throw-ins and corners are becoming more crucial. During his time at Stoke in the late 2000s, Pulis took advantage of them to help the team overcome the odds in the top division.
“I remember a long time ago with Sean Dyche, Burnley were an incredible threat in the long balls, second balls,” Guardiola said. “Dyche is one of the best by far doing these kind of aspects. It’s not new, he did it before. Or Sam Allardyce. Or I remember when I was not here, Stoke City
“Do you remember Stoke City when they made the throws? It happened in that time. Now it’s just more and more teams doing that but then maybe Stoke was the exception. I remember when I was at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Arsène Wenger talked about going to play at Stoke City but now it happens a lot of times.
“Every manager does what they believe. I’m focused on that. I want to score from free-kicks and corners – I’m not naive, I want it – but I spend my time on what we have to do to play better, attack better and create chances, to score goals. Defensively you have to be more aggressive.
“All the aspects of the game I see. Of course I pay attention but I know I’m not the manager to try to … It’s what I’ve done all my career.”