Most Premier League assists

Ryan Giggs has 162 Premier League assists. Kevin De Bruyne, the most celebrated creator the competition has had, is second on 118 — and got there in roughly half as many seasons. Between those two numbers sits the whole argument about whether this is a record of quality or a record of endurance.

This is the top twenty since 1992/93, the season the competition began. It is a much less familiar list than the goalscoring one, and considerably more revealing about how the league has actually been played.

Eight of the twenty made every one of their assists for a single club, a far higher share than on the scoring list — creators tend to be built into a team rather than bought into one. Six of the twenty are recognisably strikers rather than midfielders, Henry, Rooney, Cole, Sheringham, Salah and Son among them, which is a useful corrective to the idea that assists belong to the number ten.

The gap between first and second is the thing to sit with. Giggs played twenty-two Premier League seasons for one club; De Bruyne's total was compiled in twelve. Both facts are on the table below, and which of them you find more impressive says a lot about what you think this statistic is measuring.