Guardiola focused more on open play chances than set pieces at Man City

Pep Guardiola believes it would be naive to ignore the impact of set pieces, but insisted he will continue to focus on open play chances when training his Manchester City players.

Set pieces, and long throws in particular, have taken the Premier League by storm this season, with early leaders Arsenal enjoying much of their success from such situations.

Indeed, 19% of all Premier League goals this season have come from corners (45/241), the highest proportion ever in a single campaign, while the 4.0 long throws into the penalty area per game this season is more than double that of any season on record (since 2014-15).

Brentford's Michael Kayode has caught the eye with his long throws this season, one of which helped the Bees take the lead against Liverpool in their 3-2 win over the weekend. 

Although the trend has grown this season, Guardiola credited the likes of Sean Dyche, Sam Allardyce and Stoke City for being some of the first to utilise the tactic.

"Dyche is one of the best by far doing these kind of aspects. It’s not new, he did it before. Or Sam Allardyce," said Guardiola.

"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, Arsene 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."