When it comes to providing assists, Leroy Sane is peerless at the moment.
By setting up Gabriel Jesus to open the scoring against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Monday, Sane recorded his eighth assist for Manchester City this season.
That moved him to just two behind the 10 that Eden Hazard has in the lead of the race for the Golden Playmaker Award, the prize given to the player with the most assists in a season.
But this total does not show the consistency of Sane's creativity over the past season and a half.
Perhaps more importantly, it ignores the limited playing time the German has had in reaching such numbers.
This season Sane has played just 1,242 minutes.
In contrast, the Chelsea playmaker has featured in 1,762, or about five-and-a-half more matches more.
If you look back to the start of the 2017/18 season, Sane's 23 Premier League assists are five more than any other player. But, this was achieved with far fewer minutes played than the four players immediately below him.
| Player | Assists | Mins | Mins/assist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leroy Sane | 23 | 3664 | 159.30 |
| Raheem Sterling | 18 | 4161 | 231.17 |
| Paul Pogba | 17 | 3826 | 225.06 |
| Christian Eriksen | 17 | 4558 | 268.12 |
| Mohamed Salah | 17 | 4859 | 285.82 |
| Kevin De Bruyne | 16 | 3305 | 206.56 |
Since August 2017, Sane's total minutes played is just 3,664, meaning he has provided an assist every 159.3 minutes.
Not one of the top six players for assists since that date gets anywhere near this rate of chance creation.
A look at Sane's rate of assists compared with the leading all-time creators in the Premier League would show that he is far ahead of those players in terms of consistent chance creation.
| Player | Assists | Mins | Mins/assist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Giggs | 162 | 46433 | 286.62 |
| Cesc Fabregas | 111 | 26372 | 237.59 |
| Wayne Rooney | 103 | 38019 | 369.17 |
| Frank Lampard | 102 | 48868 | 479.10 |
| Dennis Bergkamp | 94 | 22202 | 236.20 |
| Steven Gerrard | 92 | 41131 | 447.08 |
The closest to Sane among the top six for assists are Cesc Fabregas and Dennis Bergkamp, whose totals of 111 and 94 were achieved at a rate of more than 70 minutes more time than the Man City winger requires.
