Pep Guardiola has played with four centre-backs across his defence and Jurgen Klopp pulled on a baseball cap but MIkel Arteta is perhaps the biggest tribute act yet to Tony Pulis and the success he had at Stoke City.
Pulis found a way to beat the odds when he had guided Stoke to promotion to the Premier League. His approach led to the development of xG as baffled rivals tasked data scientists to figure out how they were winning games without having a ruck of shots or dominating possession.
Set plays were particularly important - 81 out of the 188 in total that Stoke scored in the top flight under Pulis between 2008 and 2013 came from set pieces excluding penalties, a whopping 43.1 per cent, and they helped the Potters stay up and establish themselves back in the big time.
They were sneered at by football snobs such as Arsene Wenger but the next generation of top managers appreciate their value. Arsenal have scored 22 league goals from corners - and 30 in total from set plays - since the start of last season and the next highest is Guardiola's Man City with 15.
Dimitar Berbatov made the comparison when he reviewed Arteta's corner-powered win over Manchester United on Wednesday night and Pulis has been tending on social media, with waves of Arsenal fans caught between their old slating of his tactics and embracing a title challenge.
"They get it now," said Pulis on BBC 5 Live. "What I would say, and I want to make this clear, is that I think for corners - and we were very, very good at set plays at Stoke - but for corners, it was one season at West Brom when we scored the highest number of goals (from corners). All the teams I've been at, most have been good at set plays, which is such an important part of the game, as Arsenal are showing, and I think it's coming more into fashion now with people having set play coaches up and down the country.
"It's taken them a while to work it out but it looks as though the penny has dropped."
He added: "I was aware of how important those different situations would be to a team that was just coming into the Premier League and having to survive in the Premier League. The quality of the balls in is absolutely fantastic. Then you've got to have people who want to attack the ball and want to score. Arsenal have got that in abundance.
"If you look at my career all the way through from winning promotion at Gillingham, I got promoted from every division. I worked hard. I knew how important they were, I knew they would be a big factor for the teams I had. Doing it and making sure players knew how important it was, was all part of my set-up. I would set my teams up in lots of ways and set plays were as important as anything else."
Pulis put himself in an opposition manager's shoes and pondered how he would set up to defend against this Arsenal team now if he was back as Stoke boss - and he kept making the point that he hoped that set piece coaches employed by clubs now are working on defending as well as attacking.
He said: "I think if you're breaking it down, the quality of corner kicks that Arsenal provide for people to attack is fantastic. The quality is good. But also, a lot of goals I've seen, they have scored against zonal marking. We always used to hope and pray that teams would zonal mark against us because you've got people standing and jumping. If you watch Arsenal, they all feed back to the back post and then they run - and a running jump v a standing jump, there's not many people who will beat you.
"Teams have got to look at it differently. I would go man for man and I'd have a space man if I could, I'd get Andy Carroll back in and sit him in that space. He used to head battleships out of the water, Andy. He would clear a few of them for me."
He added: "One thing I will say is that I thought the defending from Manchester United was really, really poor. You know it's coming, you know the stats, I'm sure the manager has mentioned it to them, and I think Arsenal won something like 95 per cent of first touches. That's brilliant from Arsenal but shocking from Manchester United."
Stoke's power from set plays came from hard work on the training ground - and the success depended on both delivery and aggression and determination from the big men in the box.
He said: "I used to get very frustrated at times (in training). The players would switch off. They'd get a little bored standing around. But then come the Saturday, the same as Arsenal against Manchester United, the work you put in, the results you can get from it really benefit the team over a season."
He added: "Everything is swung into the goal, which is very important. I like inswingers, I don't like outswingers. Arsenal are doing that. Then they're covering all the bases. They're getting people across the front of the goal, they're trying to take the space man in front out of the game by getting someone across him first, and they're attacking the spaces in between the zonal markers. If you watch them, everyone is on the move. They're jumping across standing players and you've got a great chance of winning the ball if you're running and jumping rather than standing and jumping."
Pulis was asked by host Eleanor Oldroyd if he could be tempted out of retirement to join the new set piece party, either as a manager or specific coach.
He said: "You're joking aren't you? I live on the south coast and I'm having a great time. Seven grandchildren and I'm spending as much time as I can with them and enjoying myself."
Does that involve set piece training with the grandkids in the garden?
"Actually yes!" he said. "But Debbie defends it really well."
At that point, Jonathan Pearce, sitting alongside Pulis, chipped in with his own memory of Pulis's success.
He said: "Arsenal hated playing against Stoke. Arsene Wenger moaned about every goal Stoke scored against him and would moan and moan and moan again. Tony Pulis deserves more credit for what he did as a manager. He took Stoke to a cup final and into Europe and he's had to put up with criticism all his career. I remember when, as a Bristol Rovers hero, he got booed on his first day by Bristol City supporters on his first day as their manager... because I was one of them."
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