Assists are such a strange metric that it is pointless considering them if you want to assess how creative a player is. Someone can tee up a teammate for a tap-in with a brilliant pass, yet if they don’t convert the opportunity then the creator obviously does not receive credit for an assist.
This is an issue which has unfortunately affected Harvey Elliott in his Liverpool career. Prior to the 3-1 win over Southampton, the young midfielder had created eight Opta-defined clear-cut chances for Liverpool and every one of them had been missed.
To put that into context, Andy Robertson has set up four such chances this season and three of them have led to goals, and therefore assists for the Scot. Even if Elliott’s first eight were only of average value – and Mohamed Salah’s miss against Bournemouth following his pass was the joint-highest xG chance Liverpool have had in the last five years – there’d be just a 1.9 per cent likelihood that the former Fulham youngster wouldn’t have a single assist.
