With his two assists against Newcastle, Trent Alexander-Arnold took his total tally to 61 in the Premier League, the most for a defender in the history of the competition. We look at who the Liverpool star has surpassed and the data behind his assists.
Trent Alexander-Arnold now has more assists than any other defender in Premier League history.
The Liverpool vice-captain came off the bench to set up two Mohamed Salah goals in the 3-3 draw with Newcastle on Wednesday night. That took his overall assist tally in the competition to 61, moving him two ahead of his full-back partner Andy Robertson (59), making Alexander-Arnold the most creative defender in Premier League history.
It wasn’t long ago that Alexander-Arnold registered his 100th goal involvement for Liverpool in all competitions, and the Englishman has been incredibly prolific since his debut for the club.
Since his first Premier League appearance for the Reds on 14 December 2016, Alexander-Arnold has more assists (61) and created more chances (488) than any other defender.
In fact, expand that to all players and only Kevin De Bruyne and Pascal Groß have created more chances than him, while only three players have more assists to their name: De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah and Son Heung-min.
Most Assists in the Premier League Since Trent Alexander-Arnold Made His Debut:
Kevin De Bruyne: 97
Mohamed Salah: 76
Son Heung-min: 62
Trent Alexander-Arnold: 61
Andy Robertson: 57
It took Robertson 268 games to hit 59 assists, while Alexander-Arnold hit that mark in just 239 matches. Those numbers mean that Alexander-Arnold has averaged 0.26 assists per game in Premier League history, which is again a record for any defender.
Sadio Mané has been the biggest beneficiary of Alexander-Arnold’s creativity, with the Senegalese forward scoring 11 goals from Alexander-Arnold assists. Salah is next with 10, while Virgil van Dijk (7) has been a real threat from set-pieces given Alexander-Arnold’s wicked delivery.
Who Trent Alexander-Arnold Has Assisted Most Often in the Premier League:
Sadio Mané: 11
Mohamed Salah: 10
Virgil van Dijk: 7
Roberto Firmino: 5
Diogo Jota: 4
A defender has tallied 10+ assists in a single Premier League season on nine occasions. Alexander-Arnold accounts for three of these (13 in 2019-20, 12 in 2018-19 and 12 in 2021-22), as does Roberston (12 in 2019-20, 11 in 2018-19, 10 in 2021-22). The presence of those two flying, adventurous full-backs was one of the hallmarks of Jürgen Klopp’s early playing style at Anfield and the numbers each has put up are genuinely remarkable.
As his career has progressed, Alexander-Arnold has started to move into more central areas, inverting from right-back to get on the ball higher up the pitch. That has enabled him to get into more dangerous situations and only improved his ability to pick up assists. As a result, by the time Alexander-Arnold retires, we could be looking at a record here that will never be broken.
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