Here's a list of the players who have more assists in a Premier League season than Bruno Fernandes has right now:
- Done it twice: Kevin De Bruyne and Cesc Fàbregas - Done it once: Thierry Henry, Mesut Özil, Frank Lampard, and Mohamed Salah
If someone asked you to come up with a list of the best creative players in Premier League history, it would look something like those six. Eric Cantona never bested Fernandes' current mark, while the likes of David Beckham, David Silva, Eden Hazard, Steven Gerrard, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and literally any other name you might think belongs in this conversation have never assisted as many Premier League goals as Manchester United's captain has in this campaign.
The difference between Fernandes and anyone we've already mentioned, of course, is that he still has seven games left to play. If he keeps up his current pace of about 0.6 assists per 90 minutes, he'll match the record of 20 set by Henry in 2002-03 and equaled by De Bruyne in 2019-20. He could easily break it, too.
In other words, Fernandes is putting together what might go down as the greatest creative season in Premier League history. And it's driving Manchester United to what's likely to be a third-place finish, just a year after the club finished 15th. They have a plus-17 goal differential when he's on the field and have been outscored by a goal when he's not.
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At the end of the season, there will be only a year left on Fernandes' contract, but the decision is obvious: You do whatever you can to keep an all-time Premier League great at your club... right? To see why the answer isn't so obvious, all United need to do is to look about 35 miles due west to the club that's now tied with them atop the list of the most first-division titles in English soccer history.
How Fernandes does everything for Man United
It's not an exaggeration to say that Manchester United might be playing in the Championship if it weren't for Fernandes. OK, fine, maybe it is; if they didn't have him, it's not like they would just have all of their same players sans Bruno. They would've signed other players who might have replicated some of his production. But it's highly doubtful that anyone else could've done any of this.
Since January of 2020 in the Premier League, Fernandes has: