It is nine years since Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City and brought with him a style of play that was to be followed – and copied – by coaches up and down the country, from the highest professional level to the amateur and youth game.
As I talked about in a previous column about the value of defending properly, Pep’s style of play did not just become ‘the right way’ to play, it also became ‘the only way’.
At the time, without question, City had the strongest squad of players, technically, in the Premier League, but it felt like many other managers and coaches put style over substance and, irrespective of their strengths, many teams were encouraged to play possession-based football.
I always played to my own squad’s strengths, and have never changed my views on that principle, but you still have to admire the complete revolution that Pep and City created.
Possession football, with passes through the pitch and end products to finish off the phases of play, is fantastic to watch.
But possession football, where the goalkeeper and centre-backs play square passes back and forth, is not fantastic to watch!
In my younger days, we were coached to have our first touch forward, and then to play forward to the best technical players we had on the pitch, who usually were the wide players and centre-forwards.
Football is not, and should not be conditional – where you play a certain way regardless of the type of players you have got.
Still, fashions keep on changing. Set-plays have come into fashion with almost every team now trying long throws and in-swinging corners. Teams who were being pressed by opposition forwards at goal-kicks are now playing long, to beat it.
A certain change of wind direction is taking place, and maybe it has turned back a notch. Even my old assistant, David Kemp, has been in his wardrobe to bring out his old bell-bottom jeans – for those of you reading who are too young to remember, they used to be in fashion in the 1970s.
As a manager, I always saw my job was to get results. Maybe substance over style is the direction the Premier League is heading in now?
Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.
