There was plenty to celebrate at the end of Manchester United\u2019s final home game of the 2025\u201326 season as Bruno Fernandes finally reached the 20-assist mark for the campaign. Since the Premier League began in 1992, only Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne have reached that same figure, a milestone that has attracted scrutiny on how assists are recorded.<\/p>\n
De Bruyne has long argued he was denied a higher total in 2019-20. After setting up Raheem Sterling for City\u2019s third in a 5-0 win over Norwich City during the Project Restart period, and being named player of the match, he was told he had equalled Henry\u2019s record. He told City\u2019s in-house media channel: “In my mind, I\u2019m on 22 [assists]. I\u2019ve been stolen twice by the league\u2014especially away at Arsenal. But, in the end, you get what they say.” <\/p>\n
The contentious example came in a 3-0 win at Arsenal where De Bruyne\u2019s pass to Sterling was later judged to have taken a touch off Calum Chambers. At the time, the Premier League\u2019s official X account claimed De Bruyne had taken his tally to 10 goals created. A review by Opta, the league\u2019s official stats provider, deemed the cross not to meet the threshold for an assist. That decision sits uneasily with Opta\u2019s own wording: “If the assist is deflected by an opposition player,” the definition reads, “it must be deemed as traveling to the goalscorer irrespective of the deflection.” De Bruyne\u2019s delivery did not appear to change direction markedly after brushing Chambers\u2019s studs, yet it was removed from the records. The Premier League\u2019s montage marking De Bruyne\u2019s 100 assists even began with that disputed clip.<\/p>\n
Fernandes experienced a similar twist of fate this season when a header for Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko against Liverpool was touched by Freddie Woodman and removed from the record. When the mark did arrive against Forest, Fernandes was foremost about his teammates and Bryan Mbeumo\u2019s finish. “I wouldn\u2019t say relieved, but very happy, very proud,” he reflected after the game. “Obviously, everyone knows it was something that, when you start getting close to that, you start thinking a lot. A good thing is that it doesn\u2019t change the way I play because I\u2019m there to serve my teammates, try to make them score goals.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m very grateful to see their reaction more than mine because I wanted Bryan to celebrate his goal. I didn’t want to make it about myself because at the end of the day scoring the goal is the biggest thing in football. And all credit to Bryan because if he doesn\u2019t put it in the back of the net, my record will not be there. So these records only come if your teammates do the things right as you do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fernandes reached 20 assists as De Bruyne recalls a disputed 2019-20 tally and a lost assist. Details<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,179,172],"tags":[1162,1637,342],"class_list":["post-13887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-assists","tag-bruno-fernandes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13887","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=13887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}