The Portuguese midfielder broke the long-standing Premier League assist record last weekend, with a pass to Patrick Dorgu who opened the scoring against Brighton.
Bruno Fernandes whipped in a fine corner for the Dane, who headed the ball firmly in the direction of goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen.
The ball went in, with the goal marked down as Dorgu’s, the assist tallied as Fernandes’ 21st of the Premier League season, and Manchester United now 1-0 up. But only the scoreline was correct.
Dorgu’s goal is visibly and objectively a Verbruggen own goal
One replay, discovered by a fan on Sunday evening, provides conclusive proof that Dorgu’s shot was not on target, and would have rebounded back off the crossbar if not for Verbruggen.
The ball visibly strikes the Brighton goalkeeper’s hand, ricocheting into the net and finding a home it simply would not have found without the aid of Verbruggen.
Dorgu’s goal and the 31-year-old’s assist should not have counted, although, I doubt that the Portuguese midfielder or Manchester United fans will care very much… considering it did.
Indeed, the Goal Accreditation Panel has already confirmed the goal to stand as the Dane’s, and therefore Fernandes’ 21st assist of the campaign, despite video evidence emerging that proved otherwise the night before they reached their decision.
A lot has been made of the assist record, initially set by Thierry Henry then equalled by Kevin De Bruyne, over the years.
Prior to the 31-year-old’s feat, many fans even considered it cursed due to the sheer volume of times that a Premier League player could and should have broken it, but failed to.
At the end of the day, the Portuguese midfielder may not have deserved his 21st assist, but he did deserve the record.
Fernandes recorded 33 Big Chances Created in the Premier League this season, tying Kevin De Bruyne for the most ever in an English top-flight campaign.
If that level of creative output isn’t enough to break the record, then what is?
Bruno Fernandes not hitting 21 assists would have been just as tragic of a story as when his Belgian counterpart failed to do it: one of the best creative seasons in Premier League history failing to break the record, despite doing enough individually to deserve it.
And to those who still argue against it, this record has ‘number-fudging’ history as recently as this season, created by Sky Sports.
A graph used to downplay the Manchester United man’s record, separating open-play and set piece assists, revealed that Henry’s 20 assists were all from open-play.
Yet a simple video search instantly proved this wrong, ironically found on Sky Sports’ channel, with two of Henry’s assists visibly coming from set pieces.
Therefore, the Frenchman and Mohamed Salah share the joint record of 18 open-play assists in a 38-game Premier League season.
To Arsenal fans who feel that Henry was ‘robbed’ of his record, it’s worth noting that despite conclusive proof of him not having 20 open-play assists in 2002/03, the majority of social media users still believe he does.
Football stats-heads may try to disprove these narratives using facts, but the truth is too often not objective, and instead what the greatest authority deems it to be.
And that truth is simple: Bruno Fernandes officially holds the assist record, and that is what history will remember.
