Premier League’s greatest assist providers

By Jovan Belev Source:Global Times Published: 2020/3/27 21:13:40

Ryan Giggs Photo: VCG


The English Premier League is on hiatus, like much of the rest of the sporting world, so what better time to look back at the names who have delighted us over the years?

Everyone remembers goals but those goals are not scored without someone there to provide the assist. These are the top-10 assist providers in Premier League history.

Ryan Giggs - 632 games, 162 assists - Manchester United

The Welsh wing wizard spent more than two decades at Old Trafford and he won a record 13 Premier League titles along the way. 

He may be famed for some of his solo goals but Giggs, who grew up in nearby Salford, was one of the providers in chief as Alex Ferguson made the club the most successful in England. 

By his later days, the fleet-footed winger had slowed down and moved into central midfield where he was still out-thinking opposition defenders even as his temples grayed. 

He gave himself his last ever appearance as a United player, serving as caretaker manager following the departure of David Moyes. Giggs holds not only the record for England but Europe's big five leagues.

Cesc Fabregas - 350 games, 111 assists - Arsenal and Chelsea

The Spain international is 32 now and half a lifetime ago he was making his mark on the English Premier League with Arsenal. 

He was first choice for the Gunners as they kept going close under Arsene Wenger, even losing to boyhood club Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League final in 2005.

Fabregas would return to the Camp Nou, where he would become champion of Spain, and he would become a World Cup winner and twice European champion with his country.

He only won the title when he returned to England with Chelsea, winning two on the spin under Jose Mourinho and then Antonio Conte.

Wayne Rooney - 491 games, 103 assists - Everton, Manchester United

His most famous assist came after he left Everton a second time, when he was at DC United in MLS. 

Rooney chased back into his own half as the opposition broke in the 96th minute of a game against Orlando City and after winning the ball back he launched a 40-yard assist to Luciano Acosta who headed in to make the score 3-2. 

Rooney may yet get chance to add to his tally if he can help Derby County gain promotion from the Championship to the Premier League.

Frank Lampard - 609 games, 102 assists - West Ham, Chelsea, Manchester City

The current Chelsea boss is one half of the most prolific assist-scorer duo in the Premier League with Stamford Bridge teammate Didier Drogba. 

Some 24 of his 102 top-flight assists were laid on for the Ivorian, including famous examples against Bolton Wanderers and Liverpool. There were many more, starting at West Ham and ending in Manchester via West London and New York.

Dennis Bergkamp - 315 games, 94 assists - Arsenal

We will let Bergkamp explain his love for assists: "You can compare it to a quarterback: you want to see and play the perfect pass. The pleasure of scoring goals is known, but for me the pleasure of the assist came close," he told FourFourTwo magazine. 

"It's like solving a puzzle. I always had a picture in my head of how things would look two or three seconds later. I could calculate it. There's a tremendous pleasure in doing something that someone else couldn't see." 

It was appreciated by his strike partners - Thierry Henry called the Dutchman a "striker's dream."

Steven Gerrard - 504 games, 92 assists - Liverpool

Liverpool's skipper was renowned for winning matches for his side whether through goals or assists. 

It did not hurt that he played with some of the best strikers in the world at Anfield in Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler, Luis Suarez and Fernando Torres. Still it was another player, one who never quite hit the heights, who sticks in the memory for Gerrard's best assist. 

Daniel Sturidge got on the end of an outside-foot through ball from his skipper - played off-balance - at Fulham.

David Silva - 301 games, 90 assists - Manchester City

The highest placed of those players still in the league, the Spanish star has slowed down in recent years and will not have many more games to add to his impressive tally. 

Silva will leave Manchester City at the end of the season after a decade but he has arguably been the league's best player in that time. Of his 90 assists, 15 have been laid on for teammate Sergio Aguero.

James Milner - 534 games, 84 assists - Leeds United, Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Liverpool

The only other current player on the top-10 list is Milner, one of the game's more dependable characters and still going strong 17 years after making his debut as a wiry striker at Leeds United. 

He is set to become a Premier League title winner with Liverpool when the league resumes and it was for the Reds he overtook David Beckham in the charts. 

Replays showed the assist that did, setting up Sadio Mane to score against West Ham United, was offside but you cannot argue with his output.  

David Beckham - 265 games, 80 assists - Manchester United

One of the greatest crossers of a football in the game, Beckham honed it for Manchester United where he also took the free-kicks and corners, before starring at Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, AC Milan and PSG. Nothing more needs said.

Teddy Sheringham - 418 games, 76 assists - Nottingham Forest, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Portsmouth, West Ham 

Another player whose career at the very top of the English game lasted for two decades, Sheringham was one who seemed to get better with age. He became the PFA Player of the Year after moving to Manchester United and only then after outlasting Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke who were in front of him in the order at Old Trafford. 

His most famous assist may well be for the current United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who he headed on to for the Norwegian to score the winner in the 1999 Champions League Final. Sheringham set up three goals in a Premier League game on seven separate occasions.
Newspaper headline: Putting it on a plate


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