When did the ‘assist’ become a statistic of note? I know we’ve gone stat mad, with lists of shots, passes, ground covered by each player and expected goals every game, but when did ‘assists’ come of age?
Looking at the BBC match day information, an assist seems to be almost as important as a goal. Arsene Wenger was lambasted for giving the impression a Champions League place was like winning a trophy. Is an assist now as important as hitting the back of the net?
And what defines an assist? As often as not, it’s an accidental deflection or nudge. And what if a shot is miskicked, wildly blazed over or saved. Shouldn’t the pass leading to that be credited as an ‘assist’ and added to the list of statistics? Wasted assists, or Wastists, perhaps.
Such thoughts were filling my mind after Tuesday’s Champions League match vs Seville. The way Gabriel Jesus trapped our desperate clearance, turned in front of two opponents and passed to Gabriel Martinelli was truly magical. A real assist. A touch of pure technical genius that one can only gape at and admire. That’s before leaping into the air in exaltation when Martinelli kept his cool and slotted the ball past their keeper! That’s what I call an assist. And as much as I love the tireless work and vital contributions of Declan Rice, you can’t really describe his pass before Jesus score the second goal as an ‘assist’. That was solely down to our number 9’s brilliance. Nor should it be bundled into official stats together with lucky balls that lead to goals, like the ones to Son by James Madison in the NLD! (Alright, they were both decent passes, but you know what I mean!)
Let’s just celebrate good play-makers and outstanding passes, wherever they occur on the field, and dump the search for meaningless statistics.
By the way, does anybody actually know what ‘expected goals’ are?
RS 28/10/23