The 5 players in Europe’s top leagues with 10+ goals & assists: Messi, Saka…

Being a great goalscorer is one thing. Being a reliable creator is another. But you have to be truly special to excel at both, as these five players from Europe’s five major leagues demonstrate.

Just five footballers across the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga have hit double figures for both goals and assists in 2022-23 so far.

Here are the players to have managed the special achievement this season.

Lionel Messi

Who else but-? A near ever-present on these kind of charts throughout his ridiculous career, Messi remains both an elite goalscorer and provider.

Earlier this season, the 35-year-old became the first player in Europe’s major leagues to hit double figures for both goals and assists – and he only went and carried that dazzling form into Argentina’s World Cup triumph in Qatar.

Only four other players have followed him to achieve the same feat. Messi is now up to 13 goals and 13 assists for Ligue 1 table-toppers PSG.

READ: 11 incredible Lionel Messi stats after recording his 300th club assist

Neymar

The 2022-23 campaign hasn’t quite gone to plan for Neymar. Brazil suffered a disappointing quarter-final exit to Croatia at the World Cup and he missed yet another crucial Champions League knockout game for PSG – and his latest injury set-back will keep him out for the remainder of the campaign.

But it shouldn’t be forgotten that the Brazilian is still absolutely unplayable on his day. He was arguably the best player in Europe prior to the World Cup break, and his record of 13 goals and 11 assists from 20 Ligue 1 appearances for PSG this season is obscene.

That’s a direct contribution to goal every 64 minutes – the best ratio of any player on this list.

Bukayo Saka

The Arsenal forward is the only Premier League player to have mustered double figures for both goals and assists this season. The 21-year-old claimed his 10th assist and scored his 11th and 12th goals of Arsenal’s title-challenging 2022-23 campaign in a 4-1 victory over Crystal Palace.

Elsewhere in the English top flight, prolific goalscorers like Erling Haaland and Harry Kane are low on assists, while top assister Kevin De Bruyne has only scored four league goals.

Saka has become the 44th player in Premier League history to register 10+ goals and assists in a single campaign. He’s also only the eighth Arsenal player to manage the feat, following in the footsteps of Gunners legends like Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry and Cesc Fabregas.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia

In a recent New York Times profile of ‘Che Kvara’, writer Rory Smith makes the point that the Napoli forward is a throwback to a bygone pre-internet age where footballers would burst onto the scene out of nowhere.

The numbers certainly bear that out, with Kvaratskhelia the first player to reach double figures for both goals and assists in a debut campaign in a major European league in over 15 years. The 22-year-old, signed from Dinamo Batumi last summer, has been one of the key pillars of Napoli’s imminent Scudetto.

It’s impossible to eclipse El Diego’s achievements in the city, but Kvaratskhelia is carving out his own piece of Neopolitan history. Perhaps one day there’ll be street art of the immensely talented Georgian winger in Naples.

10+10 – Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (12 goals and 10 assists in Serie A so far) has become the first player with 10+ goals and 10+ assists in his very first season in the Big-5 European Leagues since Diego in 2006/07 (13 goals + 13 assists for Werder Bremen). Multipurpose.#SerieA pic.twitter.com/x7FzthNGLa

— OptaPaolo (@OptaPaolo) March 19, 2023

Randal Kolo Muani

The Eintracht Frankfurt attacker may struggle to ever quite live down his missed chance in the dying seconds of France’s World Cup final defeat to Argentina. He sent his effort on target but was denied by Emiliano Martinez – an instantly iconic World Cup moment, for better or worse.

“I still watch it, I know it off by heart,” he told beIN Sports.

“In my head, I said to myself – Randal, you have to shoot now. I tried to shoot towards the near post but the goalkeeper made a very good save. But there were other options. I could have lobbed him, or find Kylian Mbappe [who was free on the left]. But in the moment, I didn’t see him. It’s only when you watch back that you discover the other options.”

“It’s too late. It still sticks in my throat and it’ll be there for life.”

But that one moment shouldn’t define him. He’s done brilliantly to dust himself off and get back in form. The 24-year-old has 11 goals and 10 assists in his debut Bundesliga campaign and if he can maintain those standards, surely it won’t be long until Premier League sharks come calling for his signature.

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