It’s 9 years since Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester Metropolis and introduced with him a mode of play that was to be adopted – and copied – by coaches up and down the nation, from the best skilled stage to the beginner and youth recreation.
As I talked about in a earlier column about the worth of defending correctly, Pep’s fashion of play didn’t simply grow to be ‘the correct approach’ to play, it additionally grew to become ‘the one approach’.
On the time, with out query, Metropolis had the strongest squad of gamers, technically, within the Premier League, nevertheless it felt like many different managers and coaches put fashion over substance and, no matter their strengths, many groups had been inspired to play possession-based soccer.
I all the time performed to my very own squad’s strengths, and have by no means modified my views on that precept, however you continue to must admire the whole revolution that Pep and Metropolis created.
Possession soccer, with passes by means of the pitch and finish merchandise to complete off the phases of play, is improbable to observe.
However possession soccer, the place the goalkeeper and centre-backs play sq. passes backwards and forwards, just isn’t improbable to observe!
In my youthful days, we had been coached to have our first contact ahead, after which to play ahead to the very best technical gamers we had on the pitch, who often had been the huge gamers and centre-forwards.
Soccer just isn’t, and shouldn’t be conditional – the place you play a sure approach no matter the kind of gamers you’ve got.
Nonetheless, fashions carry on altering. Set-plays have come into vogue with nearly each crew now attempting lengthy throws and in-swinging corners. Groups who had been being pressed by opposition forwards at goal-kicks are actually enjoying lengthy, to beat it.
A sure change of wind path is going down, and possibly it has turned again a notch. Even my previous assistant, David Kemp, has been in his wardrobe to deliver out his previous bell-bottom denims – for these of you studying who’re too younger to recollect, they was in vogue within the Nineteen Seventies.
As a supervisor, I all the time noticed my job was to get outcomes. Possibly substance over fashion is the path the Premier League is heading in now?
Tony Pulis was talking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.
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