Koulibaly, Rudiger, Van Dijk, Dias: Who had the better 2021/22 season?

Kalidou Koulibaly is a Chelsea player.

The west London club have officially announced the arrival of the Senegalese defender from Napoli in a deal believed to be worth around £31 million.

Koulibaly’s signing will certainly strengthen Chelsea going into the 2022/23 season and should make the club’s fans forget about Antonio Rudiger’s departure.

The charismatic German enjoyed a magnificent 2021/22 at Stamford Bridge, but opted to join Real Madrid on a free transfer this summer.

But in Koulibaly, Chelsea have arguably upgraded their centre-back department – and we’ve got the numbers to prove it.

Using Squawka’s Matrix Comparison tool, we’ve compared Koulibaly, Rudiger, Virgil van Dijk and Ruben Dias’ overall league stats from last season.

The 18 stats used to judge the quartet of world-class defenders are as follows:

Remember, all the stats on show are per 90 minutes, to make the whole comparison process a lot fairer.

Here’s the final results…

Van Dijk: 4.5

Dias: 4.5

Rudiger: 1

Koulibaly:8

Winner: Koulibaly

Well played, Kalidou.

Chelsea’s newest recruit was comfortably the best defender statistically of the four last season, which certainly caught us by surprise.

However, we must also stress that the numbers above cannot be used to solely judge the quartet., as football doesn’t quite work like that.

Because Koulibaly played in a Napoli team that wasn’t as dominant as Liverpool, Manchester City or Chelsea, he’s naturally forced into making more clearances, interceptions and blocks per 90 minutes.

But the fact Koulibaly is the king of the castle when it comes to take-ons completed and take-on success is very interesting indeed.

The 31-year-old’s ability to bring the ball out from the back and kickstart attacks by breezing