Liverpool career stats for Álvaro Arbeloa - LFChistory - Stats galore for Liverpool FC!

Arbeloa joined Deportivo in the summer of 2006 from Real Madrid where he had mostly featured in Real's B-team, Castilla. Depor's financial difficulties forced them to sell Arbeloa, who had been a regular since his arrival, making a handsome profit on the deal. When Liverpool failed to bring Lucas Neill to the club, they bought Arbeloa to be Steve Finnan's understudy at right-back. Arbeloa had a baptism of fire against Barcelona in the Champions League where he showed his versatility in the left-back position and kept Lionel Messi quiet. Although his reputation from his time in Spain was mainly as a right-back, in a lot of matches, especially early in the season, he was switched to the other flank; and he was also able to fill in as a central defender if required. On the whole, he was dependable, even if he never came close to doing anything much at the other end of the field, as he had done when scoring at Reading in April 2007.

Arbeloa established himself as the team's first-choice right-back in the 2008/09 season when Liverpool should have won the League title. The signing of Glen Johnson in the close season of 2009 led to much speculation that Arbeloa would move on which was confirmed when he signed a five-year contract with his former club, Real Madrid. Arbeloa has played in roughly 70% of Real Madrid's Primera matches in his four seasons there and in 2011/12 he added a Spanish championship winners' medal to the Copa del Rey winners' medal won a year earlier as Real reclaimed the title after it had been in Barcelona's possession for the previous three campaigns. Arbeloa was in Spain's successful squad that won the European Championship in 2008 but only appeared in one match, against Greece, during the finals. He can also call himself a world champion even though he only featured for 13 minutes in 2010. Arbeloa was finally a regular in the team when Spain repeated their Euro success in 2012, appearing in six games. Arbeloa made forty first-team appearances for Real Madrid in the 2012/13 season to take his grand total for the club past the one hundred and fifty

.

Arbeloa appeared in just less than half (18/38) of Real Madrid's La Liga matches in the 2013/14 season. Real finished in third place behind Atlético Madrid and Barcelona. The defender also played in eight Copa del Rey matches but a knee-injury meant that he was unavailable for the final against Barcelona in Valencia, which Real won 2-1. In the Champions League Alvaro played the full 90 minutes in four of Real's six group matches but the same knee-injury ruled him out of the knock-out stages as Real joined their city rivals Atlético in the Champions League final in Lisbon. At the end of 2014/15, there was some speculation linking Arbeloa with a return to Anfield but instead, Liverpool signed Nathaniel Clyne and Joe Gomez. His Real Madrid contract was extended for another year but he was a bit-part player as the club won an 11th Champions League title, appearing in just two group games. Arbeloa became a free agent in the summer of 2016 joining West Ham United on a one-year contract on the last day of the 2016 summer transfer window. He managed just four appearances for West Ham and was out injured with a leg injury from December. At the end of the season, he announced his retirement from the game. He returned to Spain and is an ambassador for Real Madrid and media pundit.