It was Ryan Gravenberch that swept home spectacularly to open the scoring in Liverpool’s 2-1 derby win on Saturday, but the assist came, as it often does, from another perfect pass from Mohammed Salah.
How good was this assist? Well, it wasn’t exactly “put on a plate” easy to finish – Gravenberch’s skill and timing made more of it than it deserved – but it still took just one touch to finish.
It took my mind back to June and a goal scored from what I would call a perfect assist.
It was at the U21 Euros Final and delivered by England’s Tyler Morton. A curling pass dropped just three yards from the goal line, allowing Jonathan Rowe to divert home with an easy header and make England European U21 Champions again.
But it was the nature of the assist that really caught my attention. An assist that hardly left the receiver any other choice but to score. All he needed was the one touch.
Not all assists are this clear cut, of course. By definition, a player only needs to have taken the immediate last touch before a teammate scores to record an assist. Even if the scorer then dribbles past five opponents to score. Or buries a “worldy” from 30 yards out.
That’s one of the two things that made Morton’s assist stand out: it needed just one touch to convert.
As a friend had suggested on X a few months ago: a pass should only count as an assist if the scorer needs less than three touches before scoring.
That’s not the case now, of course, but it’s probably the kind of detail that football clubs consider when evaluating creativity stats, even if it’s wrapped up in more advanced metrics than expected assists and expected goals.
The other thing that stood out about Morton’s assist – was how close to goal the decisive touch was applied. Just three yards out, the very definition of “putting it on a plate”.
Rowe did great with his movement – staying onside, timing the run – but Morton’s assist essentially gave him the best ingredients for a sure goal: a ball that required just one touch to finish from right in front of goal.
For me, these are the two factors that make the really creative assists stand out from the pack: The fewer the touches the scorer has to take before scoring a goal, the better the assist. Simplicity over complexity. The closer to goal the chance arrives at the feet (or head) of the scorer, the better the assist. Proximity makes scoring easier.
I thought I would apply this two-factor test to the 18 assists that made Mohammed Salah the Premier League assist leader in 24/25. His 28 goals also earned him the Golden Boot for top scorer but were his assists a true confirmation that Salah was the Premier League’s prime creative force?
The results tell quite the story. Only one (6%) of Salah’s 18 assists required more than two touches before the scorer put the ball in the net. That was Darwin Nunez’s spectacular goal against Bournemouth at Anfield, when he exchanged passes with Salah at halfway before running through. Nunez clearly did all the heavy lifting on that goal, but that’s far from typical of Salah’s assists, 11 of which (61%) required only a one-touch finish; like both of Luis Diaz’s brace at Old Trafford, or Cody Gakpo’s goal at West Ham. Talk of putting chances on a plate.
The proximity chart is just as compelling with Salah’s assists leading to 15 goals scored from within 12 yards of the goal line. The three outliers include that Nunez goal from above, as well as a Dominic Szoboszlai goal at Etihad (16 yards out) and a Trent equalizer at Villa Park (17 yards out). The vast majority (82%) were much closer to goal, like the Gakpo tap in against Man City at Anfield, or the Curtis Jones winner against Chelsea at Anfield. Hard to miss chances.
Salah has started the new season in similar vein: Gravenberch’s one-touch finish – 10 yards from goal – was his second assist of the season. His first? Another one-touch finish, a game winner at Newcastle (Szoboszlai co-assist?) smashed home from 12 yards out by Rio Ngumoha.
The proof of the pudding and all that. The Egyptian King is the real creative deal.
