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Fans, managers, press, weirdo’s, players and all the others who talk about football always point to this as a major way of assessing whether a player has done well for his team or not. My question is if it really does paint a good picture or not? There are of course plenty of examples of great assists where players deserve huge credit. I think of course to Suarez’s wonderful mazy run against the Mancs which left Kuyt with a 6 inch tap in. Suarez again for Sahins goal against Norwich. Going back a bit, Alonso’s amazing left foot half volley through ball for Gerrard against Sunderland; Beardsley’s ball for Aldridge against Forest. For goals against, Kaka’s ball to Crespo for 3-0 in the European Cup final in 2005 was one of the best turns and passes I’ve ever seen. Peter Reids pass for Linekar to make it 1-0 to the shite in the 1986 Cup Final was a genuine thing of beauty (I can say that because we won). However, there are also so many cases where the assist was nothing more but a standard pass to someone who created magic. Look at Suarez’s hat-trick goal against Norwich in which Sahin got an assist. A square pass of about 7 yards outside the area. A pass any fella kicking about in the park could have made. Glen Johnson the year before at Norwich just plays a standard ball in to Suarez in his own half, only for Suarez to go past a player and then lob the ‘keeper from 50 yards. Who even remembers who got the assist for Maradonas amazing solo goal against England in 1986? Worse again is assists by accident. Wasn’t Gomez about to get the Golden boot at Euro 2012 because of an assist where he went to take a shot with his right foot, missed the ball completely, it bounced off his left leg and into the path of another German player who scored? Until Torres made the assist at the end of the final, that would have been enough for Gomez to take home such an honour ahead of the others. I then think back to the all the laughs we, and the fans of other clubs had with Downings 0 assist rate last year. However, any honest Liverpool fan will know that while Downing has been shit, he did put in many excellent balls from out wide that had we had a proper striker would and should have resulted in many many more goals. He pretty much ended up with a horribly unwanted stat because we didn’t have anyone capable of converting a cross. Stick a player with the heading ability of a Duncan Ferguson type into our team last year and we’d probably have been challenging for top 4 and Downing would have had 10 or more assists to his name. So my question is, how relevant are assists, and do they paint an honest picture?