Narcis Pelach stopped short of saying he wants Stoke City to steal back the set piece crown taken by Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal but he is hammering home his big belief in dead ball expertise – including adding a long throw.
Stoke in the Premier League under Tony Pulis are still the benchmark for intimidating opposition at corners and free-kicks but Arsenal – having stubbornly snubbed their value under Arsene Wenger – have emerged as credible title challengers under Arteta as they have adopted it as a key part of their own game.
Pelach was preparing to watch their two goals from corners in a mid-week win over Manchester United in his hotel room before Stoke take on Sunderland (Saturday, 12.30pm) as he tries to make sure his squad keeps improving, particularly as Junior Tchamadeu sharpens a long throw he believes he can bring to the table.
“I usually review all the goals from the best six leagues in Europe at the end of the week and I’ll watch them tonight in my hotel room,” Pelach told StokeonTrentLive. “I’ll have a look at those Arsenal goals. I’m a fan of the set plays. I love it. I am very pragmatic in this. I like to put the ball in the box and I like to go with passion and aggression to attack the ball.
“I’m pleased with how we’re doing. We’ve scored three goals and I think since we’ve been here we’re the second best team in the league at scoring from corners. That’s positive. We’re growing in that respect and I want more.
“I’ve always loved it. I did it as an assistant coach for many years and at Huddersfield I’ll always remember that season as a magic one because we scored 23 goals and we were the best team for that in the Championship.
“It was very basic, it’s very basic now. We just want to up the ball in and go and go and go. We have some extra details which I’m not going to share…
“With the long throw of Junior I think we have another tool. We are trying to stress the opponent more and be a little bit ugly when we need to be. I know the club had that with Delap years ago and I like the long throw. We’re going to use it, we’re going to put balls there and I want to be a team that is difficult to defend against at set plays and see what we can take from it.”
It might be ironic that the new drive in set pieces in English football is being led by Arteta and Pep Guardiola and Pelach admits it is still a rare principle to focus on for coaches from Spain.
Pelach said: “In Spain there is no real culture for set plays like there is in England. In England it’s something much, much bigger. I don’t consider myself Spanish in that respect, I consider myself British. I was strange in Spain because I love set plays while in Spain it’s all about open play stuff and set plays are something you delegate to assistant coaches.
“Here I’m doing it myself, I really love it. It might be strange for players that the manager is the one doing the set pieces meetings but I really like it, I want to do it and I want to emphasise to the team how important it is for me and for the club. I think we’re good but I want more and step by step I want to improve delivery and more things. It’s important we keep growing.”
Growing as a team in more than one way. Stoke players under Pulis have spoken about beating Arsenal in the tunnel at home as they towered over them and that will come into the thinking again in recruitment.
Pelach said: “I want to be big. I like the physicality in teams and I think in the Championship you need that. That’s another thing that goes a little bit against my Spanish culture. I think we need to find the right profile for Stoke City but it’s something I look after, I want presence and I want to be big because I know at set plays we can be better when we defend and when we attack. I think we can be bigger than we are.”
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