Gerard Pique has welcomed Barcelona’s capture of his potential new defensive partner Jeremy Mathieu, admitting the club needed to bring in a new centre-back.
Earlier this week Mathieu became the first central defender to be signed by Barca for five years when the Catalan club met the French international’s buy-out clause of €20 million (Dh73.5m) – the highest fee ever paid for a defender aged 30 or more – to prise him from Valencia.
Mathieu is likely to line up alongside Pique in the heart of the back four, with new manager Luis Enrique hoping to finally find a replacement for former skipper Carles Puyol, who retired earlier in the summer after a long series of injuries and is now the club’s assistant sporting director.
With Puyol forced to miss a lot of action over the past few seasons, Barca have fielded a bewildering number of different central defensive pairings, with Pique teamed up with Javier Mascherano, Marc Bartra, Alex Song, Sergio Busquets and Adriano at various points of the last two years.
And Pique, who has made at least 38 appearances in each of the six seasons since he rejoined the club from Manchester United in 2008, admits he is delighted by the prospect of some stability in his part of the pitch.
“We needed to fill that position,” Pique acknowledged, also claiming to be unconcerned that Mathieu only converted to the centre of defence from left-back in the last two years.
“Whenever Mathieu has played for Valencia in that position, he has always done well and I’m delighted with his move. I’m happy to have him in my squad.”
Another Barca defender quick to roll out the welcoming mat was left back Jordi Alba, who previously played alongside the Frenchman for three years at Valencia – although neither of them were then in their current positions, with Mathieu still operating as a full back while Alba was a winger.
Alba tweeted a picture of himself and Mathieu together, accompanied by the message: “Welcome to a good friend: I’m happy to have you with me again.”
