'Tony Pulis was regarded as a bit of a dinosaur in some quarters but Mikel Arteta does it and he's a genius...'

IT has taken a while but even football snobs are now realising the potential of set-pieces and long throws.

- Stoke City reporter PETE SMITH

The power of the dead ball has been a huge part of football since the sport started to be codified in the 19th century but there have been some Arsene Wenger-shaped egotists who have turned up their noses at the supposed simpleness of it.

Wenger accused opponents such as Stoke City of being 'anti-football' as he made what felt like a miserable annual pilgrimage to be beaten in the Potteries.

But his successor, Mikel Arteta, has taken the baton from Tony Pulis to embrace the ways to score goals and win games that don’t involve 54 short passes.

This season, 69 per cent - 11 out of 16 - of Arsenal's goals have come from set pieces and they sit top of the Premier League. Across the division, 19 per cent of goals have come from corners.

There is a theory that attackers are taking advantage of new freedoms in the penalty area since the introduction of VAR as defenders fear being pulled up on camera for using their arms to block runners.

But Chris Sutton thinks there are managers and pundits who are finally getting over a degree of snootiness too.

He said on 5Live's Monday Night Club: "If Tony Pulis was Spanish... Tony Pulis was regarded as a bit of a dinosaur in some quarters but Mikel Arteta does it and he's a genius. Tony Pulis was doing it years before Arteta. How is a long throw different from when Tony Pulis does it?"

Fellow guest Rory Smith didn’t seem to agree, suggesting that Arteta-era set-pieces are more scientific than the apparent blood and thunder approach that Pulis oversaw back at Stoke.

He said: “The main difference now is that the players taking the long throw cost £70m. The throw itself is maybe no different at all. I think long throws are basically being used for the chaos element because it’s really difficult to defend them.

“But from corners and free-kicks it looks like there are set and quite heavily layered blocking patterns that didn’t exist in the 1990s. Maybe I’m wrong.