Scoring a goal is an inherently singular outcome. There can only be one name scrawled onto the scoresheet for each euphoric event.
Yet, few goals are purely solitary in their creation. There’s an argument to be made that every touch in the build-up to a goal is worthy of recognition but only recently has the final pass, the assist, been recognised as significant.
In the elite realm of Premier League football, a clear supply line from one player to another is often snuffed out before the duo can dovetail to truly devastating effect. However, over the three decades of England’s rebranded top flight, there have been a handful of double acts that enjoy such a telepathic connection they remain prolific.
Here are the most successful assister-scorer combinations in a single season of Premier League football.
In the opening three months of the 1994/95 campaign, Steve McManaman teed up five of Robbie Fowler’s eight goals as the pair of Liverpool academy graduates hit a rich vein of form.
The duo would spent six seasons together in the first team before McManaman joined Real Madrid at the turn of the century. An early headline exponent of the new-fangled free transfer in England left Fowler a little choked up.
“I was gutted, not only for the simple fact that you were a mate but also the fact that we were losing a great player and I understood the reasons why,” he remembered. “I think I almost cried.”
Kevin Gallen’s debut season in the first team of his boyhood club Queens Park Rangers was arguably the best of his career.
The then-18-year-old rapidly struck up a partnership through the middle with the regal Les Ferdinand, teeing up the wily forward for eight Premier League goals – and scoring ten himself.
Yet, Gallen didn’t register another top-flight assist after Ferdinand joined Newcastle in the summer of 1995. QPR were relegated the following year and Gallen couldn’t look past a glaring explanation which was universally agreed upon. “We had a good team but we really missed Les’ goals.”
In an era before extensive video analysis was commonplace, Darren Anderton and Teddy Sheringham ruthlessly exploited a set-piece gimmick.
Anderton would dribble a low cross towards the near side of the six-yard box for Sheringham to dart onto and sweep goal-wards. That simple routine accounted for three of the eight goals Anderton created for Sheringham during the 1994/95 campaign.
Erling Haaland scores from a Kevin De Bruyne assist.
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The frighteningly prolific link-up between Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland – evident from the Norwegian’s Premier League debut against West Ham – is almost robotic in it’s cold precision.
Haaland didn’t add a lot of warmth to the partnership when he mechanically broke down the geometry of their success. “I know that when Kevin De Bruyne has the ball, I have to be on the opposite side in the right place and at the right time for him to play the ball into my course with a sharp cross,” he outlined between several beeps and chirps.
Two days before Christmas 1995, Stan Collymore got into the selfless spirit early. The most expensive player in English football at the time produced a perfect hat-trick of assists as Liverpool stormed from 1-0 down to beat Arsenal 3-1.
All three of Collymore’s creations landed at the clinical feet of Fowler – a regular scourge for the Gunners. The pair would link up another six times – including twice on New Year’s Day – as Collymore made an assist-laden start to life on Merseyside.
Alan Shearer is always quick to shower his former Blackburn Rovers strike partner Mike Newell with praise – far more than he has ever dished out to the more prolific but less selfless Chris Sutton.
However, the straight-talking Newell takes the compliments from his former roommate with more than a pinch of salt. “They say he said this and that about me,” Newell once reflected, “but if you couldn’t play up front with Alan Shearer you couldn’t play. He’d make any striker look good.”
Nine assists for Shearer in the 1995/96 campaign certainly saw Newell help his strike partner look good.
Harry Kane’s dedication to self-improvement on the football pitch is renowned. Tottenham’s all-time record goalscorer stays in a second home next to the club’s training ground during the week to give him more time to hone his craft.
Kane is so often fixated on football that he once admitted: “I probably spend more time with Son than I do with my wife.” England’s skipper credits the friendship the pair have developed with their telepathic understanding on the grass. “We have a great relationship off the pitch and obviously I think that shows on the pitch as well.”
Much as Kane was not the one-season wonder as once pigeonholed, this duo has proven to be effective over numerous seasons, combining for the most goals in Premier League history.
Credit: 90min.com
