Assist Record For Scotland

[JECK]

Everyone seems to big on assists these days and heard the other day Robbo now has 7 assists for Scotland. Got me thinking who has the all time record for Scotland? For some reason Gary Mac sprung to mind has probably having a few, would be an arduous task to work out but would interesting to find out.

[Whelky75]

10 minutes ago, JECK said:

Everyone seems to big on assists these days and heard the other day Robbo now has 7 assists for Scotland. Got me thinking who has the all time record for Scotland? For some reason Gary Mac sprung to mind has probably having a few, would be an arduous task to work out but would interesting to find out.

I don’t think that statistic would have been measured and recorded in the days when Gary McAllister - assuming that’s who you were referring to - was playing. I’m sure that’s a much more recent phenomenon.

[mccaughey85]

8 hours ago, JECK said:

Everyone seems to big on assists these days and heard the other day Robbo now has 7 assists for Scotland. Got me thinking who has the all time record for Scotland? For some reason Gary Mac sprung to mind has probably having a few, would be an arduous task to work out but would interesting to find out.

I would guess dalglish might have quite a few going by his caps number and the attacking position he played but i wouldnt know for sure.

[Tartan blood]

13 hours ago, JECK said:

Everyone seems to big on assists these days and heard the other day Robbo now has 7 assists for Scotland. Got me thinking who has the all time record for Scotland? For some reason Gary Mac sprung to mind has probably having a few, would be an arduous task to work out but would interesting to find out.

I was curious about this a while back and couldn't find much evidence at all.

I really don't like the way assists are recorded in general. Like how because Robbo's cross was deflected to McGinn, it doesn't count as an assist, even though he obviously created the goal. 

Additionally, Christie stole the ball, ran to the touchline, put in a beautiful cross to Dykes who cushioned it for McTominay. Christie gets no credit. I think the whole stat system needs revised. 

I think Robbo's world class ability would be better reflected in chances created, rather than assists. Though I doubt anyone will be questioning his level after the last couple of games.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Tartan blood

[ceudmilefailte]

2 hours ago, Tartan blood said:

I was curious about this a while back and couldn't find much evidence at all.

I really don't like the way assists are recorded in general. Like how because Robbo's cross was deflected to McGinn, it doesn't count as an assist, even though he obviously created the goal. 

Additionally, Christie stole the ball, ran to the touchline, put in a beautiful cross to Dykes who cushioned it for McTominay. Christie gets no credit. I think the whole stat system needs revised. 

I think Robbo's world class ability would be better reflected in chances created, rather than assists. Though I doubt anyone will be questioning his level after the last couple of games.

Tierney didn't get an assist on Tuesday, but he still made the goal. 

[breeks_mctavish]

It’s a bit of a donkey of a stat. But some people with too much time on their hands seemingly delve through old match reports to conjure historic assists stats. Apparently Kenny Dalglish is Liverpool’s all time top assister with around 160 assists. I even saw assist stats for Pele. I’m quite sure it wouldn’t have been counted at the time. 

Even though I just called it a donkey of a stat I’d still be interested to know who tops Scotland’s assist charts. Dalglish would be a good shout.

[Judith]

10 minutes ago, breeks_mctavish said:

It’s a bit of a donkey of a stat. But some people with too much time on their hands seemingly delve through old match reports to conjure historic assists stats. Apparently Kenny Dalglish is Liverpool’s all time top assister with around 160 assists. I even saw assist stats for Pele. I’m quite sure it wouldn’t have been counted at the time. 

Even though I just called it a donkey of a stat I’d still be interested to know who tops Scotland’s assist charts. Dalglish would be a good shout.

Ian Rush would probably agree with that!

[N4Footsoldier]

Basically anything on this before Opta was founded in 1996 is going to be subjective at best. Even then it was rolled out exclusively for the premier league/sky sports. Widely used tracking models you're lucky if this was in place by 2010.

 

[mccaughey85]

On 4/1/2023 at 12:14 PM, breeks_mctavish said:

It’s a bit of a donkey of a stat. But some people with too much time on their hands seemingly delve through old match reports to conjure historic assists stats. Apparently Kenny Dalglish is Liverpool’s all time top assister with around 160 assists. I even saw assist stats for Pele. I’m quite sure it wouldn’t have been counted at the time. 

Even though I just called it a donkey of a stat I’d still be interested to know who tops Scotland’s assist charts. Dalglish would be a good shout.

Dalglish would be my bet. Over a 100 caps in an attacking position.

 

[Kiltedsteamer147]

Assists are a lot of American nonsense. Especially when you see some of the terrible passes/crosses that go down as assists. 

[Whelky75]

1 hour ago, Kiltedsteamer147 said:

Assists are a lot of American nonsense. Especially when you see some of the terrible passes/crosses that go down as assists. 

I think they work ok as a statistic in basketball, but aren’t the best of statistics in football, where there are a far greater variety of ways to score a goal.

[mccaughey85]

3 hours ago, Kiltedsteamer147 said:

Assists are a lot of American nonsense. Especially when you see some of the terrible passes/crosses that go down as assists. 

Not sure they could be called nonsense.

I would say that if someone continually gets assists then they are contributing to the team in a big way by providing a killer pass or even just the right pass at the right time or in robertsons case it can often be an excellent cross.

Giggs and beckham are both high up on the all time assists records. This is because they consistently provided pinpoint crosses or passes that helped score a goal.

I remember ryan gauld assisting 4 times in one match before he headed off to sporting. I am guessing sporting and other clubs might have looked at that match and thought wow this kid knows how to lay it on a plate for his team mates.

Fair enough some assists are bullshit or lucky but its not luck to be doing it consistently like roberston does for liverpool or de bruyne for man city.

[Tartan blood]

7 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Not sure they could be called nonsense.

I would say that if someone continually gets assists then they are contributing to the team in a big way by providing a killer pass or even just the right pass at the right time or in robertsons case it can often be an excellent cross.

Giggs and beckham are both high up on the all time assists records. This is because they consistently provided pinpoint crosses or passes that helped score a goal.

I remember ryan gauld assisting 4 times in one match before he headed off to sporting. I am guessing sporting and other clubs might have looked at that match and thought wow this kid knows how to lay it on a plate for his team mates.

Fair enough some assists are bullshit or lucky but its not luck to be doing it consistently like roberston does for liverpool or de bruyne for man city.

They can certainly be misleading. The one I always think about is when Busquets is standing with the ball in the middle of the park in an El Classico. He makes a 1 meter pass to Messi, who runs half the length of the pitch, skins 5 players and scores. That goes down as an assist, despite him having basically no creative influence.

I think at the very least deflected crosses should count as assists. I also think winning a penalty that leads to a goal should count as an assist.

[ceudmilefailte]

I don't think corners should count as assists, I think if you kick the ball into the box often enough one of them is eventually going to hit a players head. 

[mccaughey85]

3 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

I don't think corners should count as assists, I think if you kick the ball into the box often enough one of them is eventually going to hit a players head. 

Why? You are still providing an assist. Taking a good corner takes skill and practice. 

[ceudmilefailte]

43 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

Why? You are still providing an assist. Taking a good corner takes skill and practice. 

There's a difference between a good corner and a ball delivered with pinpoint accuarcy to a certain player.

I would imagine every corner is just whipped into the box therefore players taking corners have a far greater chance of recording assists.

I feel much the same about penalties, you can only score them if you take them so it inflates players scoring stats.

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, ceudmilefailte said:

There's a difference between a good corner and a ball delivered with pinpoint accuarcy to a certain player.

I would imagine every corner is just whipped into the box therefore players taking corners have a far greater chance of recording assists.

I feel much the same about penalties, you can only score them if you take them so it inflates players scoring stats.

Whit?????

Do you ever actually watch a game of football, or do you just check out the stats? 😉

[Tartan blood]

3 hours ago, ceudmilefailte said:

 

I feel much the same about penalties, you can only score them if you take them so it inflates players scoring stats.

I definitely think penalty goals should be clearly marked in stats. Maybe even a seperate count. How many of Tavernier's 100 goals were penalties? Barry Ferguson scored 19 goals one year. Which sounds amazing, but I think 11 of them were penalties. 

Shankland has scored 20 odd goals this year, but I think he's only scored single figures from open play. Very misleading. I could be wrong, but I think Nisbet may have even scored more than him from non-penalty goals.

[ceudmilefailte]

1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

Whit?????

Do you ever actually watch a game of football, or do you just check out the stats? 😉

Do you think goals scored from corners are delivered to a specific player by the corner taker? That to me is what an assist is.

It's up to a team mate to make contact with the ball, the taker is just getting it in an area that it can be attacked he coldn't care less who is going to get on the end of it. I suppose you could say that about a lot of  assists

[Kiltedsteamer147]

19 hours ago, mccaughey85 said:

Not sure they could be called nonsense.

I would say that if someone continually gets assists then they are contributing to the team in a big way by providing a killer pass or even just the right pass at the right time or in robertsons case it can often be an excellent cross.

Giggs and beckham are both high up on the all time assists records. This is because they consistently provided pinpoint crosses or passes that helped score a goal.

I remember ryan gauld assisting 4 times in one match before he headed off to sporting. I am guessing sporting and other clubs might have looked at that match and thought wow this kid knows how to lay it on a plate for his team mates.

Fair enough some assists are bullshit or lucky but its not luck to be doing it consistently like roberston does for liverpool or de bruyne for man city.

Assist stats can mean very little and can be misleading. All they really tell you is whether the team has good strikers or not. 

I remember a Liverpool game a few years ago where Robertson delivered several brilliant crosses which nobody scored from and Alexander-Arnold put in one decent delivery which led to a goal. Who had the better game?

Unless they replace the assist stats with crosses/passes which should have led to a goal or at least a shot on target (never going to happen obviously) then they won’t mean a great deal to me.