No not at all, I don't particularly like comparing players like this anyway because there are so many different variables to the game, what I am saying is that "assists" is a flawed stat that shouldn't be used when comparing the quality of one player to another, assists is completely dependant on another player scoring the chance, if your going on goals scored at least its directly talking about the player whos scored and nothing else.

Nobody disputes it’s a flawed stat, but that doesn’t make it meaningless. Grey areas exist.

comment by United_kaz (U9943)
posted 2 hours, 42 minutes ago
I saw next to vvd recently a new stat of not being dribbled past, when did that get made up?
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Whenever somebody went a full season without being dribbled past.

OP

I agree assists have only come into the modern game. Goals were the only thing to judge midfielders, strikers on for about 120 years.

what about the assist before the assist!

Wouldn't say it's completely pointless. If you look at the assists table at the end of a season it's no coincidence that generally the most creative players come out on top.

I do agree that people pay far too much attention to them though.

All stats are useless for fans, we do not have the context. Better just to watch, I did an article on it, but few agree, don't know why.
When you watched, Roy or Becks or Giggs you didn't need stats to know they were good, what they could do.

I think the one that annoys me the most is when people use "tackles per game" as a way to judge a centre back/defensive mid. Complete nonsense.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

But the problem isn’t the stats themselves, but how people are using them for their judgement/justification. That’s just a problem of football fans.

Assists create goals of course its relevant.

It's not the most important stat but to dismiss it entirely makes no sense.

No, it's not relevant unless you have all the context, which we don't.
Winger À is one of the best, beats his man regularly, sends over a stream of good crosses which the donkey in the middle makes a hash of.
Winger B hardly ever beats his man, but just hoofs it in the middle, where RVP or equivalent converts dross to gold, giving winger B many more assists over the season.

But that doesn’t make the assist stat itself irrelevant.

I’m not even that big a fan of stats myself. I think we are oversaturated with them in football nowadays, and some do place far too much importance on them, but that doesn’t make them irrelevant or pointless - they quite clearly serve a purpose, and statistical analysis is a fundamental part of scouting nowadays.

I said they're irrelevant to fans, and I believe that. Unless you are Hafi how on earth can it increase your enjoyment of football knowing player A had more assists than player B, especially as we don't know all the factors involved. Watching the players tell us all we need to know.

Quite clearly they aren’t irrelevant to fans, we wouldn't be having this discussion otherwise.

15 posters does not really show relevance

Well it shows it’s relevant to some, so yes it does.

Ye lets ignore Trents assist record. Irrelevant

Yes Rouge it is irrelevant. If he played for a team other than Liverpool, with worse players in attack, his assists would be much worse despite him being the same player.
Yet the fans of that team would all know just how good he was. It's the ultimate team game, each player impacts on other players and therefore their stats.

By that logic goal stats are irrelevant.

It is logical and they are. There have been many strikers with great records at one club who flop at another. We've had some in the past, Gary Birtles comes to mind, but there have been plenty more and at other teams.

Yeah and they are usually judged as flops because their goal stats aren’t sufficient.

Bit they were bought because their goal stats were.

Meaning goal stats are relevant. We got there in the end.

No it means there stats were only good in one team, not the second, so irrelevant in football terms. Relevant in getting a good price though.
Plus at the commencement of this I did say stats are only good if you have all the context. For fans they are useless.