Just who are the greatest goal makers in Premier League history?

TalkSPORT have started to reveal the top 20 leading goals assisters since the dawn of the Premier League in 1992. Well being a spoil sport and a proud Gooner, I am going to ruin their fun and tell you know what you probably already know. Three of our greatest protagonists of the Premier League era will feature fairly highly.

However, it is not just the number of assists which tells the real story because if you have played in midfield in a top side for years you will clock up assists by default – Yes Lampard, Gerrard and Scholes, I am talking about you guys. No, it is the ratio of assists to matches which should be the true measure of greatness.

It has be the ratio of assists to matches that identifies the true creative geniuses of the modern game. It will surprise no one that David Beckham departed these shores with an incredible number of assists and no one has a better ratio at 0.57 assist per match. But I am delighted to report that both Thierry Henry and Cesc Fabregas have similar incredible ratios – both players creating goals for their team-mates at the rate of 0.56% per game.

Fabregas sits just outside the Top 10 with 119 assists and of course we all hope he stays to move into the top 10 and improve his ratio to top Becks. I take my hat off to Henry though. To create so much for his Arsenal team-mates, while shattering all goal scoring records simultaneously. One would be hard to argue against TH14 being the greatest player of the Premier League era.

The next best ratios come from our own Dennis Bergkamp and not surprisingly Ryan Giggs, but in reality, the 5 we have mentioned, two Manure legends, (painful to say but true) and our own three greats, are miles ahead of any other ‘so called’ modern greats.

Lampard and Gerrard have ratios of 0.32 and 0.31, and even Andy Cole had a better goal creativity record than ‘big mouth never learnt to tackle’ Paul Scholes – Oh we will miss him!

Just to put these pathetic stats into some context for you, the laziest and most frustrating Russian in the league, yes, our very own Andrey Arshavin has a truly amazing 40% ratio with 32 assist in 79 matches. Oh, and ‘I am worth £110k per week but also only interested in winning trophies Samir Nasri’ has an 18% ratio only which is not too impressive for a player in his position. Both players are in their last contract year and yet all we hear about is Nasri and nothing about Arshavin – not so ‘simples?’

Anyway just a bit of fun with a serious tribute element. Here are the facts below courtesy of premiersoccerstats.com, so feel free to draw your own conclusions and observations:

PLAYER		ASSISTS
	Total	Open Play	Dead Ball	per Game
Ryan Giggs	267	201	66	0.46
Frank Lampard	161	110	51	0.32
David Beckham	152	109	43	0.57
Dennis Bergkamp	147	130	17	0.46
Thierry Henry	144	123	21	0.56
Andy Cole	135	127	8	0.32
Paul Scholes	135	117	18	0.28
Darren Anderton	126	70	56	0.31
Steven Gerrard	123	77	46	0.31
Alan Shearer	122	110	12	0.27
Cesc Fabregas	119	89	30	0.56

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