Comparing Azpilicueta’s 21-22 stats with Barcelona’s current defenders

Azpilicueta has won every single trophy available to him in his ten seasons at Stamford Bridge, cementing his status as a Chelsea legend.

But Chelsea were already resigned to losing him on a Bosman deal – even prior to sanctions being brought against club owner Roman Abramovich.

This has restricted the Blues’ ability to hand out new deals and Catalan outlet Sport report that Azpilicueta wants to ‘take advantage’ of Chelsea’s precarious position in order to secure an exit.

It’d be an end of an era at Stamford Bridge but Barcelona are embarking on a new adventure under Xavi Hernandez and the signing of Azpilcueta would be a coup for the Barca boss.

We’ve compared the Spain international’s Premier League stats for the 2021-22 season with the corresponding La Liga numbers for Barcelona’s current defenders.

Note: we’ve only included players who’ve played 500 league minutes which excludes Dani Alves, Clement Lenglet, Sergi Roberto and Samuel Umtiti.

Successful tackles per 90 minutes (success rate)

Oscar Mingueza – 2.3 (71.9%)

Sergino Dest – 2.0 (90.9%)

Ronald Araujo – 1.6 (94.1%)

Jordi Alba – 1.5 (68.1%)

Eric Garcia – 1.0 (66.6%)

Gerard Pique – 0.7 (87.5%)

Successful aerial duels per 90 minutes (success rate)

Ronald Araujo – 2.6 (74.3%)

Cesar Azpilicueta – 2.3 (65.7%)

Eric Garcia – 1.4 (66.6%)

Oscar Mingueza – 0.6 (66.6%)

Jordi Alba – 0.5 (38.5%)

Sergino Dest – 0.4 (28.6%)

Interceptions per 90 minutes

Gerard Pique – 1.6

Jordi Alba – 1.3

Oscar Mingueza – 1.0

Cesar Azpilicueta – 0.9

Ronald Araujo – 0.8

Sergino Dest – 0.2

Double red card at the end of the Barcelona derby

Barça's Gerard Pique and Espanyol's Nico Melamed dismissed as tensions boil over pic.twitter.com/LtiRR4pSpJ

— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE)