Stats: Europe's top assist-providers; Arsenal's Mesut Ozil unsurprisingly on top
Goal scorers often run away with the plaudits all the time. However, they are always indebted to the man who shows incredible vision and makes the final pass slicing the opposition defense open and sending the goal-scorers clean through on goal. Not surprisingly, Arsenal’s German magician Mesut Ozil heads the standings, but there are a couple of players who might raise a few eyebrows.
Out of the ten players on the list, five players are from the Premier League showing the open nature of football in England. The five players include Ozil along with a couple of sublime midfielders from Manchester City – Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva. The surprise package of the season, Leicester, are also represented with the Algerian wizard Riyad Mahrez making the list. Finally, the talented Spaniard, Gerard Deulofeu, from Everton has also surprised and entertained his supporters with mazy runs and incisive passes this season.
The Serie A finds no representation at all with defense still the ruling department in Italy. Ligue 1 has a predictable representative in Angel Di Maria. The Argentine who left Manchester United in the summer after an underwhelming season, has formed a potent combination with the PSG attacking duo – Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Edinson Cavani – and looks to be playing somewhere near his best level.
La Liga has Barcelona’s brilliant Brazilian Neymar heading the list. Neymar has been in stunning form in the past few months and it will surprise no one that he is close to the top in both goals scored and assists. A name which many might not have expected to make the list after his disastrous spell at Tottenham is Villarreal’s Roberto Soldado. The Spaniard has fared much better in his home country and will be looking to continue his good form until the end of the season.
Real Madrid have scored eleven goals in their last three matches under Zinedine Zidane but failed to make an attacking impact while under the stewardship of former Liverpool, Chelsea and Napoli manager, Rafael Benitez, with no player from their team making the list.
The biggest miss from this list perhaps is that of five-time FIFA Ballon D'Or winner, Lionel Messi, who was out for a significant chunk of the season with a knee ligament injury he sustained early on.
Bundesliga meanwhile has 2 representatives on the list with the bigger one being Borussia Dortmund’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan – who is playing some of his best football. The other is the talented Borussia Mönchengladbach attacking midfielder Raffael Caetano de Araújo has slightly gone under the radar in the presence of other household Bundesliga stars, However, one cannot discount the importance of his assists to his team’s cause.
Here's the full table:
| Team | Player | Assists |
| Arsenal | Mesut Ozil | 16 |
| Paris Saint-Germain | Angel Di Maria | 10 |
| Barcelona | Neymar | 9 |
| Borussia Dortmund | Henrikh Mkhitaryan | 9 |
| Manchester City | Kevin De Bruyne | 9 |
| Manchester City | David Silva | 9 |
| Villarreal | Roberto Soldado | 8 |
| Leicester City | Riyad Mahrez | 8 |
| Borrusia Monchengladbach | Raffael Caetano | 8 |
| Everton | Gerard Deulofeu | 8 |