Bruno Fernandes: Creative genius
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s Athletic FC Tactics podcast, the panel discuss Bruno Fernandes, who is on the cusp of breaking the Premier League record for most assists in a single season.
So why hasn’t the record been beaten in more than 20 years?
And what’s the secret behind Fernandes’ creative genius?
Host: Michael Bailey
Guests: Michael Cox & Mark Carey
Producer: Mike Stavrou
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic FC |
| 0:03.1 | Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC tactics podcast. |
| 0:18.2 | I'm Michael Bailey. |
| 0:19.5 | Bruno Fernandez is on the cusp of breaking the Premier League |
| 0:22.3 | record for most assists in a single season. So why hasn't the record been beaten in more than 20 |
| 0:28.5 | years? And what's the secret behind Fernandez creative genius? Let's find out with Michael Cox. |
| 0:36.2 | Hi Michael. And Mark Carey. |
| 0:38.9 | Hi Michael. |
| 0:40.0 | A very good day to you both. |
| 0:41.4 | So Bruno Fernandez has been in scintillating form for Manchester United this season. |
| 0:46.3 | In 30 appearances, he has eight goals and 18 assists. |
| 0:52.0 | That means he is now just three shy of the record for most assists in a Premier |
| 0:56.5 | League season with five games still to play. That record, by the way, is jointly held by |
| 1:02.0 | Tieri-on-Ree for Arsenal in the 2002-03 season and Kevin de Broiner at Manchester City in the 2019-20 |
| 1:10.3 | campaign. First, and this seems like a very |
| 1:13.6 | basic point to make, but an important one and one I want to get to first. Mark, how do we actually |
| 1:18.8 | define an assist? No, I do think it is an important question to ask, not least because it does |
| 1:24.1 | sometimes differ, depending on data providers. |
| 1:31.9 | The one that we're going to go with here is the one from Opta, their definition. |
| 1:36.1 | And it's a definition from them that has been consistent throughout the Premier League era as well. |
| 1:40.3 | So it allows us to compare like for like, to compare apples with apples if you like. |
| 1:42.6 | And the criteria is very, very simple. |
... |
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