‘I was seen as a dinosaur but not many managers moan about set-pieces now’

Hello and welcome to my brand-new Going Direct BBC Sport column.

Every week, I’ll be examining a different aspect of the modern game, from tactics to man-management, and comparing contemporary design concepts to contemporary trends.

The rise of set-pieces, which is probably the season’s main plot so far, is only one place to start.

When we were promoted to the Premier League in 2008, I was labeled as a dinosaur for my focus on long-throws and dead-ball situations with Stoke City, but I wouldn’t say that because I knew how significant they were then.

Who I was managing, I had the responsibility to get results. I was indeed pragmatic, but I also had a purpose. I focused on achieving my club’s fundamental tenets of effectiveness.

Both ends of the pitch are crucial, not the middle. You must either keep the ball out of the net at one end or into the net at the other.

This is not a new idea; attacking set-plays, as well as defensive ones, are becoming more common this year with Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal side leading the charge.

We knew one of the things we had to nail down when Stoke moved up the top flight, set plays in the top end of the pitch, because if we did them correctly, they would help the team achieve goals.

We worked really hard on them in difficult Premier League games, especially in the first couple of years we were there, because they were the difference between us picking up points and dropping them, as well as staying up or down, and keeping them.

Just at the top end of the table, Arteta and Arsenal are following the same rules.

Like me, he has acknowledged the value of keeping clean sheets and that many of his games were won. Therefore, he has searched for a way to convert those draws to victories.

Since more than 20% of the Premier League’s non-penalty goals were scored on corners or free kicks last year, Arteta has likely considered those figures and the likelihood of becoming a winning team if it can get some of it.

I think Arteta’s embrace of set pieces is fantastic, and like me, I don’t think he will care about those who criticize him for doing it.

Whatever club you play at and whatever style of play will always generate noise and criticism from the outside, but if you are winning games, your supporters will be enthralled by it.

When Eberechi Eze scored Declan Rice’s free kick in the opener against Crystal Palace on Sunday, the Arsenal fans were singing “set-piece again, ole ole ole ole.”

I find it amusing that Arsene Wenger and I were both taking criticism for our corner routines and long throws ten or twelve years ago, and that Arsene Wenger was saying that Stoke was a rugby team.

Because he has seen all of that at the time and simply thought, “you know what, doing that could help us,” that is another reason why I have nothing but respect for Arteta.

I’ve seen a mockup of him wearing my baseball cap and other accessories, and I adore how good-looking he makes me look!

Wenger tried his hardest to change that by criticizing people like Sam Allardyce and myself, but he never seemed to appreciate the value of set-pieces and he also found it challenging to play against teams who were direct like us.

Recently, I recently watched Pep Guardiola’s interview, and they tried to make him dislike set-plays and long throws when they returned to the game.

He is one of the most powerful coaches that has ever been in power, and he claimed that he might use the same tactic if he had someone with broad shoulders who could launch the ball in for throw-ins.

Of course, it matters that Arsenal is doing it right now, not Stoke. Everyone takes notice when Arteta performs it at one of the world’s biggest and most well-known clubs.

People become aware of and acknowledge it when it continues to happen. It’s similar to when Stoke were playing at the Britannia Stadium and Rory Delap threw the throw until the crowd cheered and cheered until it was over.

Arsenal is also starting to take corners and the crowd is up before the ball even gets played, which is starting to change. It is amazing what they expect and how much pressure they put on the opposition. Of course, there is still criticism, but Arteta deserves it for it.

So maybe Big Sam and I were trend-setters after all, but I’d argue that I didn’t care because I knew what they were worth to the club I was in.

Some people were snobbish and downplayed what we did, but inside the club no one was. We laughed because we knew it was rewarding and that we weren’t going to tell anyone.

The same Sean Dyche exists. He mentioned me and Stoke’s long throws on the manager’s podcast I do with Mick McCarthy last week, and he then said the same thing when he got the Nottingham Forest job a few days later.

What matters is winning, in my opinion, for Dyche.