Bruno Fernandes stands within reach of a Premier League milestone that has endured for more than two decades. At this stage of the 2025\/26 season he has 18 league assists; two will equal the long-standing single-season record and three will break it. Manchester United have five games left.<\/p>\n
The 20-assist benchmark was set by Thierry Henry in 2002\u201303, when the Arsenal forward also scored 24 league goals. Kevin De Bruyne matched the mark in 2019\u201320. Other notable single-season totals in the modern era include Mesut \u00d6zil on 19 in 2015\u201316, and Frank Lampard and Cesc F\u00e0bregas each on 18 in 2004\u201305 and 2014\u201315 respectively. Mohamed Salah recorded 18 in 2024\u201325.<\/p>\n
Fernandes\u2019 18th assist arrived when he set up Matheus Cunha\u2019s matchwinner against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, a result that all but secures United\u2019s return to the Champions League. The Portugal international has made 30 Premier League appearances this season, missing three matches because of injury in late December into early January, and has accumulated 2,618 minutes on the pitch. That works out to an average of one assist every 145 minutes.<\/p>\n
If Fernandes plays the maximum remaining 450 minutes at that rate, he would reach the three assists needed to reach 21 and break the record. His recent form argues the case for an even higher total. After a slow start to the campaign\u2014he did not register an assist in any of the first seven league matches\u2014his numbers have accelerated: 18 assists have come in his last 23 appearances, and since Michael Carrick\u2019s appointment as interim manager in January he has been restored to the No. 10 role.<\/p>\n
Under Carrick, Fernandes has provided 11 Premier League assists in his last 13 appearances, covering 1,141 minutes, an assist every 107 minutes. At that rate the remaining 450 minutes could yield four more assists and push the final tally toward 22.<\/p>\n
For reference the club\u2019s remaining league fixtures listed in the season schedule include Brentford (H) on Monday, April 27; Liverpool (H) on Sunday, May 3; Sunderland (A) on Saturday, May 9; and Nottingham Forest (H) on Sunday, May 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bruno Fernandes has 18 Premier League assists; with five games left he can challenge the 20-record..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,179,172],"tags":[1162,342,1047],"class_list":["post-12327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}