So, Who Creates The Best Shot-Assists?
We look for the best shot creators in Europe.
Disclaimer: I might earn a small commission from purchases made after clicking links in this article. It’s at no extra cost to you and keeps the lights on.
Judging something like creative players is an imperfect science. Actually, the same can be said for analyzing sports in general.
There’s often no one right answer.
But, that won’t stop us trying.
Here, we’re going to try and find the most creative players in the Top 5 European Leagues. To do that, we’ll look at shot creation numbers, expected assists, and a whole lot more.
In this article, we’ll start with some basics, and get pretty detailed towards the end - there’s some cool stuff here.
The Shortlist
To try and narrow the list back, I’ve put the following restrictions on.
Averaging at least 2.5 shot-assists per 90 minutes over the past three months
Have played at least 500 minutes
With those restrictions, we get thirteen players within the top five European leagues. Here’s that list, in alphabetical order (links to their eBay pages):
Adil Aouchiche: This young French winger is definitely an interesting prospect
Angel Di Maria: We all know what Angel Di Maria
Dimitri Payet: I think I run more in a Sunday League match than Payet does in a match - but he’s class when he has the ball.
Hakan Calhanoglu: He’s a 10 in a game that doesn’t use 10s anymore. Great to watch when he’s on form though.
Hakim Ziyech: The Chelsea winger has looked great at times
Jack Grealish: Still underrated? I think so - especially in the hobby
Josip Ilicic: Timeless talent from Atalanta
Kingsley Coman: Loveheart Emoji
Lucas Perez: Yes, the one who used to “play” for Arsenal
Matteo Politano: On loan at Napoli from Inter, he’s been great this season from what I’ve seen
Ruslan Malinovskiy: Another Atalanta player! Jeez.
Teji Savanier To quote Charles Barkley, “who he play for”. Savanier is known to fans of French football. The 29 y.o. mid is at Montpellier
Yusuf Yazici: Another young talent playing in France. This time, for Lille.
Now, with that list, let’s work a few things with the numbers and see what we can find.
Expected Assists Per 90
Why are we going with expected assists first instead of actual assists?
Well, to be honest, mainly because I copy/pasted the images in this order and deleted the table - and now I can’t shift them around for some reason.
So, here seems a good place to start.
With that, here’s the list of players’ expected assists per 90 minutes over the past three months.
All of these guys have a great xA per 90 minutes. To expect an assist every three games, which is where last place on this list sits - is pretty awesome.
Players like Josip Ilicic, Aouchiche, Ruslan Malinovskiy, Jack Grealish and Kingsley Coman are averaging about an expected assist every two games - which is awesome.
Now, let’s see how it looks with actual assists per 90.
Assists Per 90
As you can see, there’s a bit of a change here - Kingsley Coman looks like an assist god with 0.77 assists every 90 minutes.
Even guys like Angel Di Maria, Hakim Ziyech, and Yusuf Yazici look insane with an assist every two mates (basically).
We did see a bit of movement between the two graphs. Now, let’s see who is overperforming and underperforming their expected assist numbers.
Over/Underperformance Against xA
Kingsley Coman is 0.33 assists per 90 minutes above what he’s expected to produce. That’s basically an extra assist every three matches. That’s fucking HUGE.
Granted, if you read the article earlier in the week, a lot of that is probably down to Lewandowski shooting well above his expected goals.
He’s at over double the next largest overperformance and at that rate over a full Bundesliga season, would be 11.22 assists above his expectation. And remember, the Bundesliga has less sides than the Premier League - and only play 34 games a season and not 38.
That’s huge and probably not sustainable.
Even the others that are at around the 0.15 area will play out to about an extra five or six assists a season.
On the other side, Teji Savanier, Adil Aouchiche, Hakan Calhanoglu, and especially Jack Grealish are currently underperforming their expected assists by quite a bit. They’re really getting let down by the strikers finishing (or not finishing) their handiwork.
But, that’s just looking at expected assists. What about just raw shot assists.
Shot Assists Per 90 Minutes
We can go a bit deeper to give an overall look at how many shot assists players are getting.
So basically, how many times per 90 minutes a player is passing to someone that shoots.
Remember, all of these guys are elite, and the top thirteen throughout Europe over the past three months (as per the limits I put on the search).
To get three shot assists per 90 minutes is insane to me.
That’s one every thirty minutes.
Adil Aouchiche keeps popping up on these lists, and is certainly one to watch in the future. The 18 year-old played one match at PSG last season, but moved to Saint-Étienne this season.
Hakan Calhanoglu and Jack Grealish are other standouts in what’s already a pretty impressive list.
And, with some quick math, we can combine all the work so far and see how many xA is created per shot assist.
Expected Assists Per Shot Assists
Basically, I just divided the expected assists per 90 by the amount of shot assists they get.
This gives us a number showing what their expected assist number is for every shot that they create.
I love breaking these numbers down per shot because you can really see if a player is creating good looks or not.
To give some context, anything above 0.15xA per shot is really really good.
We see Josip Ilicic on top of the list again this time. Basically, it means that every chance he creates has an xG of 0.176 - which if you were to map that out on a pitch, would be a bit behind the penalty spot.
Hakim Ziyech is another standout with the chances that he’s been creating this season. Hopefully the side can start to string some performances together.
And again, Adil Aouchiche is towards the top of this list too.
To be honest though, all of these guys are creating decent chances. Even Payet’s 0.11 is a bit above average.
Verdict
As you can see, there’s no easy answer to a question like “who is the most creative player” or anything like that.
Every test we ran here had different outcomes.
If I was working at a club (meanwhile, clubs… hit me up) and wanted to actually get into the nuts and bolts of all this, I’d break it down a step further and use the following:
How often a team is in possession - it’s obviously more likely a team that has 60% possession has more chances to create shot assists
How many attacking touches a player gets
Ratios between how many touches a player has compared to shot assists
How many opportunities a player gets to create a shot assist - if a midfielder is dropping back into their own half, it’s unlikely that they’ll register an assist from there
But, I don’t have access to this data and let’s be honest… When we’re looking at cards as a reference for this article, that’s probably not needed.
Other Variations
If I were to do this again, I might look to widen the net a little in looking for players. It would be good to see this list with Bruno, KDB, Sancho, and other high end shot creators.
For one reason or another, they didn’t make the parameters set.
If there’s a want - I might do that in the coming weeks. Let me know.
Your Next Steps
Join the Fantasy Soccer Card folio! It’s free and awesome.
Subscribe to Soccer Cards Rock if you want these emails a few times a week
As always, share this with a friend in the hobby if you liked it, and an enemy if you didn’t.