Are assists harder than goals?

Ten seasons. Five leagues. The assist record, and everyone who scored past it.

There’s three certainties in life. Death, taxes, and inane arguments between Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo fans on social media. One caught the eye today though, claiming that assists started getting tracked solely by Messi fans to beef up his metrics. You can’t reason with these people, but it did raise an interesting question. Why aren’t creative players worth as much as goalscorers?

And because this is a site about statistics… well, it’d be rude not to look at the numbers.

Off the top of your head, think of five players with a 20-league-goal season under their belt. It’s not hard. There’s loads. Now think of a player with 20 league assists in one season. There’s Bruno Fernandes from last season, who broke the record held by Henry and De Bruyne. Messi must have done it. Who else?

• Özil? Nope. He got 19 in 2015/16 though.
• Bergkamp? Negative. His Premier League best was 13.
• Zidane? Not even close. His best was 11.
• Roberto Baggio? You get the point.

The table below is the last ten completed seasons. It shows the assist leader across Europe’s top five leagues, then how many players scored more goals than that number, along with the outright top scorer for comparison.

Spoiler: not once did anyone assist more than the leading scorer scored.

The record, and who beat it with goals

2025/26 is as close as we’ve seen. Only five players scored more than Bruno’s 21 assists. But that is the outlier, and it still proves the point. Before last season, on average there were 23 players outscoring the top assist number. The average for the assist leader in the top five leagues over the past ten years is 17.5 a season.

What’s interesting this season, amongst all the talk of the Ballon d’Or, is that three of the leading candidates — Yamal, Kane and Olise — are all being lauded for their assists as well as their goals. Maybe the importance of those who get big assist numbers is growing.

Twenty, almost never happens

Across the ten seasons there were 144 player-seasons of 20 league goals or more. There were four of 20 assists or more. Those four are Messi, De Bruyne and Müller in 2019/20, and Bruno in 2025/26. A 20-goal season is a good year. A 20-assist season has happened four times, against 144 for 20-goal seasons.

And the other way round never happens. In none of the ten seasons did anyone assist more than the leading scorer managed. The thinnest scoring title was Mbappé’s 31 in 2024/25. That is still ten clear of the best assist season on the list.

So yes. In league games, over the last ten seasons, assists were harder to come by than goals. The assist king was usually stuck in the mid-teens. The scoring list ran straight past him.

Big game creators?

Well, seeing as this site is about trying to prove who steps up in the big games, here’s the leading creators of the past ten years by the quality of opponent.

Hands up who had Thomas Müller as the most creative player in the big games? Not only does he appear on this list three times, he also leads the way with 9 against top-six teams in 2019/20, and he’s joint second with 7 in 2021/22. Underrated. Surprisingly, none were from Müller corners.

And just because I don’t want to end this on a crap joke, here’s a flashback to the days when it seemed every team had a creative number 10. A stroll back to some of the best the 90s Premier League had to offer.