Pau Torres V Josko Gvardiol: Who Would Be The Best Replacement For Rudiger? We Take A Look At The Stats

Content Editor

2 years ago

Categories: Chelsea News, Galleries, Transfer News

Tags: Antonio Rudiger, Chelsea, Josko Gvardiol, Pau Torres

With Antonio Rudiger poised to join Real Madrid when his contract expires at the end of the season, Chelsea’s recruitment team are believed to be focused on finding the German’s replacement.

Sanctions mean they can’t sign anyone at the moment, but if a takeover goes through before the end of the month, they need to be prepared to make bids for potential new signings.

Villarreal’s Pau Torres is being scouted, while reports in Germany claim Thomas Tuchel is a big fan of RB Leipzig’s Josko Gvardiol. Both are left-footed so it stands to reason that they are being looked at in view to replacing Rudiger on the left-hand side of the back three.

Press the next page as we look at the stats (via FBRef) to determine which player would be the better fit for the Blues.

Aerial Duels

Being able to win the aerial battle with opposing forwards is particularly important in the Premier League where teams, particularly lower down the division, use the long ball to good effect.

On this metric, Torres comes out on top, having won 65.6% of his aerial duels this season, which is a very good figure. Gvardiol, in contrast, has an aerial win percentage of 59.1%. Rudiger, for perspective, has been winning 69.5% of his duels since August.

Tackling And Interceptions

While these two areas are not as important as they used to be for modern centre-backs, they still provide us with an insight into how proactive Torres and Gvardiol are when it comes to defending.

Over the course of this campaign, Gvardiol has made, on average, 5.4 tackles and interceptions per 90 minutes, which is double Torres’s figure (2.69). To put that in context, Rudiger has managed 2.92 per 90 over the course of the season so the German is closer to Torres in terms of his style of play.

Errors Leading To Shots

This has been a major issue for Chelsea this season. Only Everton have made more mistakes leading to goals than Thomas Tuchel’s side in the Premier League. While we don’t have those exact stats, we do have information on errors leading to shots.

Torres has made two errors leading to shots, while mistakes from Gvardiol have only led to one shot. Rudiger has made two errors, himself, this campaign, having made five in total since joining the Blues.

Passing

A modern centre-half, particularly in a three-man defence, has to be able to play the ball out from the back. In terms of pass completion numbers, Torres is slightly better (86.8%) than Gvardiol (84%) but both are worse than Rudiger (88.3%).

In terms of progressive passes (passes that move the ball 10 yards forward in the final two-thirds of the pitch), Gvardiol is superior (5.2 per 90 mins) to Torres (4.69). Rudiger is in between the two (4.96) in this category.

Dribbles And Progressive Carries

Everyone knows about Rudiger and his penchant for running forward with the ball in the opposition half, so could either Torres or Gvardiol be capable of doing that? When we look at dribbles attempted, Torres (1.1 per 90) and Gvardiol (1.31) actually average way more (0.31) than Rudiger, which is a surprise.

When you assess progressive carries (moving the ball 5 yards forward in the final two-thirds of the pitch), things are slightly different. Gvardiol (5.40 per 90 minutes) just comes out on top, with Rudiger (5.39) and Torres (5.18) not far behind.

In conclusion then, there isn’t actually a lot of difference between Torres and Gvardiol statistically, with the main disparities being that the Spaniard is better aerially, while the Croatian is more prone to putting in a tackle. It is fair to say that both would be decent replacements for Rudiger.