Arsenal enjoyed their Saturday. Prior to the Manchester derby Arsene Wenger’s men briefly topped the Premier League table following their 2-1 victory over Everton.
After he set up Olivier Giroud’s opener, we can now tell you that Mesut Özil officially assists goals more often than any other Premier League player.
Data company Opta Sports studied every player in every Premier League history with a minimum of 20 assists to their name.
They then looked at how frequently each player set up goals for their team-mates, and the German came out on top.
2.71 – Mesut Özil has the best games/assist rate in @PremierLeague history – average one every 2.71 matches. (min. 20 assists) Provider.
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 24, 2015
Özil has created a goal every 2.71 games, beating Eric Cantona (2.79) into second place. Another man with Arsenal connections, current Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fabregas, was third in the list with 2.88.
The Daily Mirror have shared the top 10, and current or former Arsenal players dominate the list.
Özil and Fabregas are joined by Thierry Henry, Santi Cazorla, Dennis Bergkamp and Jose Antonio Reyes, while Manchester City’s David Silva (3.21) comes between the former and current Gunners stars.
Manchester United are the second best represented with David Beckham in sixth place (3.31) and Nani eight (3.42) joining Cantona, but Nani’s compatriot Cristiano Ronaldo is nowhere to be seen.
