The kings of assist – a bit of statistical fun and games

By Tony Attwood

One of the papers recently looked at how many assists the top assistants had after playing 100 games in the premier league.

That seemed ok, but I noticed that some clubs seemed to have several players in the list of top assistants (if that is the right word) and some had fewer, or none.  The clubs who have had just one player get to into the top list of assists after 100 games were (with the number of assists in brackets)…

Everton: Arteta (24)

Liverpool: Smicar (24)

Nottingham Forest: Woan (26)

Blackburn: Wilcox (26)

Leicester: Guppy (27)

Manchester City: Silva (29)

In several cases the player got his assists at two clubs and unfortunately I don’t have the figures to show the breakdown between the two.

Newcastle look impressive in this list as they have two players that achieved their assists just with Newcastle, plus two whom they shared.  Tottenham likewise have two plus the one shared player – Ginola

 

Newcastle: Robert (24)  Solano (30); Newcastle/Tottenham: Ginola 25:  Newcastle / Norwich: Fox (29)

West Ham:  Sheffield W / West Ham Di Canio (24); Southampton / West Ham Berkovic  (29)

Southampton: Le Tissier (29); Southampton / West Ham Berkovic  (29)

Tottenham: Berbatov (27); Anderton (28); Newcastle/Tottenham: Ginola (25)

Chelsea: Hazard (26);  Chelsea / Leeds: Hasselbaink (27); Chelsea / Man U: Mata (31)

There is one other club like Newcastle and Tottenham that has two players who are in the top league of assists after 100 games – including Cantona the champion assistant.

Man U: Nani (34) Cantona (39)

But no one can match Arsenal in this regard, with four players, all of whom exclusively got their assists with Arsenal.

 

Arsenal: Santi Cazorla (26), Pires (28), Bergkamp (30), Ozil (36)

 

Going beyond these lists it does get a bit confusing as several bean counters have come up with lists of assistants that don’t agree, but these figures seem to be generally agreed upon…

• Most Premier League assists in a season: 20, Thierry Henry (2002–03)
• Most consecutive Premier League matches assisted in: 7, Mesut Özil (26 September to 21 November 2015)
• Most assists in a single Premier League match: each of these players got four in one game…

Dennis Bergkamp (for Arsenal v. Leicester City, 20 February 1999)

José Antonio Reyes (for Arsenal v. Middlesbrough, 14 January 2006)

Cesc Fàbregas (for Arsenal v. Blackburn Rovers, 4 October 2009)

Emmanuel Adebayor (for Tottenham Hotspur v. Newcastle United, 11 February 2012)

Santi Cazorla (for Arsenal v. Wigan Athletic, 14 May 2013)

Dušan Tadić (for Southampton v. Sunderland, 18 October 2014)

Kick TV has a piece on players with the most assists which includes some nice film of Bergkamp doing his stuff.

Anyway, I thought you might find it interesting.  Our position with assist masters certainly gives an insight into the way Mr Wenger sees the game.