Why Barcelona Would Be Wrong to Sell Gerard Pique

Gerard Pique has been a mainstay of the Barcelona defence since his repatriation to the Catalans for a bargain £5 million back in 2008.

Sir Alex Ferguson sanctioned the decision to allow Pique to return home from Manchester United and within a year the young defender had repaid him by winning a domestic treble in Spain, including a Champions League final success against United in Rome.

Fast forward to this week and if recent rumours from AS (via Anthony Chapman of the Daily Express) are to be believed, then Louis Van Gaal is preparing a sensational January move to bring Pique back to England.

There's no denying that United themselves need a centre-back of the highest quality, the weekend defeat to Leicester City highlighting their problems in the area.

Pique would certainly be an upgrade on the players that they already have in the position, and United's apparent interest in his acquisition is obvious and understandable.

However, one needs to ask the question as to why Barca would consider offloading him in the first place.

There have been question marks over Pique's suitability at Barca for a while now. It's been well documented, by Giles Tremlett of The Guardian and others, and from as far back as 2010, that Pep Guardiola had the Metodo 3 surveillance and private detective agency follow Pique to determine his habits away from the confines of the club. 

Poker tournaments, travelling across the world to show his support for other half Shakira and late night sessions at private clubs in Barcelona all won't have gone down too well with the Barca hierarchy.

But the fact was, and is, Pique has been an easy pick in the centre of defence.

Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

Not because Barca seemed unable to acquire a centre-back in the transfer market, but because the figures evidenced that he was more than deserving of his place at the heart of the Catalans' back line.

WhoScored.com note that Pique's passing accuracy upon his return to Barca was at the 89.4 percent mark. It dipped to an absolute worst of 86 percent in 2011/12 and then we see a very definite upward curve into the 90s ever since.

Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

Compare those figures to Marc Bartra, who generally hovers around the mid to upper 80s, per WhoScored, Javier Mascherano's similar WhoScored rating and also Jeremy Mathieu's. Pique is evidently head and shoulders above the competition.

Where Pique suffers it would appear is that he is expected to be the commanding centre-back that Carles Puyol was. A swashbuckling "Tarzan" type defender. Old school, if you prefer. But in all fairness that has never been Pique's game. He is the very embodiment of the modern-day centre-back.

Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

An excellent ball-player, a great reader of the game, perhaps the only facet of his game that needs to be worked on is the occasional lapse in concentration, seen most obviously in the 7-0 aggregate hammering by Bayern Munich.

Having had no real competition for his place since his arrival, it's entirely understandable why that area might need to be improved.

Being benched in favour of a Jeremy Mathieu-Javier Mascherano axis has brought matters into a sharper focus for club and player alike.

Barca do now have other options at the back, and Pique's place isn't guaranteed. Yet as anyone in football will tell you, having competition for places is exactly what players thrive upon. It's a "win-win" as far as the management are concerned.

So getting rid of Barca's standout exponent in that area of the pitch makes no sense at all.