Assists became a recognised statistic in world football around the 1994 World Cup, and the Premier League has tracked single-season creators closely ever since. The 20-assist barrier set in 2003 has proved a stubborn benchmark, with several elite playmakers producing seasons that came close.<\/p>\n
Cesc F\u00e0bregas announced himself as Arsenal\u2019s creative core after Thierry Henry\u2019s departure, recording 17 league assists the season following that transfer as Ars\u00e8ne Wenger\u2019s side finished third, four points behind champions Manchester United. When F\u00e0bregas returned to the Premier League seven years later with Chelsea, he produced 18 assists in his comeback campaign, the first of those coming with a memorable pass for Andr\u00e9 Sch\u00fcrrle at Burnley on Matchday 1.<\/p>\n
Kevin De Bruyne, now among the competition\u2019s most productive creators with 117 Premier League assists, rediscovered his form after a German spell and a move to Manchester City in 2015. On his arrival Pellegrini said, \u201cIt takes a special footballer to improve our squad and I have no doubt that Kevin is certainly one of those,\u201d although De Bruyne\u2019s fullest expression of that quality arrived under a later manager when he notched 18 assists in that first season of Pep Guardiola\u2019s tenure, including a late run of five assists in the final four fixtures to secure Champions League qualification.<\/p>\n
Frank Lampard combined goals and creativity in 2004\u201305 under Jos\u00e9 Mourinho, contributing through the final third as Chelsea claimed a first title since 1955. Mesut \u00d6zil provided a compelling midseason burst in 2015\u201316, compiling 16 assists in 18 games before adding just three in the campaign\u2019s second half.<\/p>\n
Mohamed Salah set new Premier League benchmarks with Liverpool in 2024\u201325, finishing with 18 assists, 29 goals and a total of 47 goal contributions, winning both the Golden Boot and the Playmaker of the Year award after being allowed by Arne Slot to \u201ccheat\u201d out of possession.<\/p>\n
Bruno Fernandes leads the 2025\/26 charge aided by Michael Carrick after a difficult period under R\u00faben Amorim. Fernandes spends much of his time as a roaming No. 10 and has been influential from set pieces. Season ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Premier League single-season assist review: the 20-assist mark and key seasons up to 2025\/26. Season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[969,1639],"tags":[1637,1638],"class_list":["post-13612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-statistics","tag-assists","tag-playmaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13612","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=13612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}