If Victor Valdes was pretty much the first name pencilled on the team sheet for Guardiola up to now, Gerard Pique is fast becoming another of the bulwarks of the team.

Every league game since Puyol’s injury

Piqué and Puyol had established themselves as the first choice centre half pairing for both Club and country, but the injury to the Club captain broke up their partnership, but since then Pique has played every minute of the last 11 league games, indeed he’s missed just two of the last 26 matches Barça have played –the 3-1 win over Arsenal and the 2-1 defeat of Llevant, both through suspension. The last game he watched from the subs’ bench was the 5-0 thrashing of Real Sociedad on December 12th.

More game time than ever

Since he came back to the Club and won a place in the first team, Gerard Piqué has been a regular, but this season he is putting in more game time than ever. In his first season he played 2.208 minutes, 110 less than he has already played this campaign and last year he played 2.478, a figure which is he is just 160 minutes away from beating, with 7 league games to play.