Chelsea: Cesar Azpilicueta covertly joining PL’s all-time top assisting defenders

Cesar Azpilicueta made his third assist of the season against Burnley, and it was the third time he assisted a Cobham graduate’s first Premier League  goal for Chelsea.

Cesar Azpilicueta’s first assist of the 2019/20 season came against Norwich and set up Tammy Abraham’s first Premier League goal for Chelsea. His first assist of 2020 set up Callum Hudson-Odoi’s first Premier League goal, the pass barely missing the top of Abraham’s hair. Going back to a game against Aston Villa in 2016, Azpilicueta assisted Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s first Premier League goal. Of course, that last was overshadowed by what transpired 22 minutes later: Alexandre Pato’s one and only Chelsea goal, express from the spot.

For all the talk of him being one-dimensionally defensive, Azpilicueta is one of the most prolific playmaking defenders in Premier League history. His assist on Saturday moved him into a tie for having the 12th most assists among defenders in Premier League history.

Longevity certainly plays its part, as Cesar Azpilicueta has been in the league for over seven years. But Ashley Cole is above Azpilicueta in the all-time defender assists standings, and no one ever accused him of being offensively-minded or a modern man’s forward-playing fullback. Cole was the epitome of a defensive full-back, and he needed 130 more games to notch three more assists than Azpilicueta currently has.

Azpilicueta picks up an assist roughly every nine games: every nine appearances and 791 minutes, to be exact. This puts him right in the middle of the Premier League’s top assisting defenders. His assist rate is much closer to Graeme Le Saux’s or Antonio Valencia’s than to Ashley Cole’s.

Azpilicueta even has a one game per assist advantage over Manchester City’s Kyle Walker (10.4 games, or 895 minutes, per assist), who is frequently held up as the sort of pacey, two-way full-back Azpilicueta is supposedly not.

Like everything else about Azpilicueta, his assisting is quite consistent from year to year. He has had three or more assists in every season since 2014/15. He peaked with six assists two seasons ago. He will likely pick up 2-3 more this season, which would move him into the top 10 among all-time Premier League defenders.

Azpilicueta also has one Premier League goal and two Champions League goals in 2019/20. He has never had more than two goals in any campaign in his career. He is well-positioned to finish this season with his highest offensive output across all competitions, all while supposedly losing his place in the starting XI because his contributions on offence can’t compare to those of Reece James, Emerson and whichever left-back is in Chelsea’s rumour mill this week.

Even after 364 games at Chelsea there are little corners of his career that mark his full importance to the club as a defender, playmaker and leader.

Everyone knows his versatility across the backline and can discuss in whatever level of detail his defensive abilities.

But until ImagoSport connected the dots, how many people knew the unique place Azpilicueta will forever hold in the memories of Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Tammy Abraham and Callum Hudson-Odoi and the fans who watched their first goals? Did those three players even notice it: “Hey, Cesar, you know what I just realized…?” Has any other player – let alone a defender – assisted so many maiden goals, let alone for club-trained players?

And if not for ImagoSport, would we have bothered to look at Azpilicueta’s career assist stats, wonder how they stack up to other Premier League defenders, and then run down that rabbit hole?

Would many people have guessed that Azpilicueta – the “defensive” defender, the kind of player you can not even notice when he does his job well – is right in the middle of the scale stretching from longevity to creativity when explaining his rising place among the top 15 playmaking defenders in league history?

Almost certainly not. Why, that would be as ridiculous as predicting all of this would come to pass from a £7 million transfer.