Why Kevin De Bruyne Thinks Bruno Fernandes Hasn’t Matched His Premier League Assist Record

Fernandes offered an interesting reaction to his 20th Premier League assist of the season.

Kevin De Bruyne (left) and Bruno Fernandes have both been credited with 20 Premier League assists in a single season. | Visionhaus/Robbie Jay Barratt-AMA/Getty Images

There was plenty of reason to celebrate at the end of Manchester United’s final home game of the 2025–26 season.

Third-place had been secured with a 3–2 victory over Nottingham Forest, handballs were now allowed, Casemiro was warmly ushered off to pastures new and Michael Carrick would be staying put. One of the most prominent positives also revoled around Bruno Fernandes matching the single-season Premier League assist record by teeing up his 20th top-flight goal of the campaign.

Since the competition’s inception in 1992, only the legendary duo of Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne have been able to reach that same swollen figure. Officially, at least.

De Bruyne, however, would argue that he should have clocked up at least 21 assists, if not 22, during the 2019–20 campaign only to be denied by the division’s pedantic statisticians.

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The ‘Assist’ De Bruyne Was Denied

A KDB 𝓂𝒶𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇𝒸𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓈 💫

📆 #OnThisDay 2019
🔷 #ManCity | https://t.co/axa0klD5re pic.twitter.com/VTWNx4gHmJ

— Manchester City (@ManCity) December 15, 2020

During the final game of that Project Restart era, De Bruyne slipped in Raheem Sterling to score Manchester City’s third in a 5–0 thrashing of Norwich City. Hailed as the player of the match during his postgame media work, it was pointed out to the Belgian that he had equaled Henry’s record which had stood unchallenged since 2003.

Nodding his head pensively during the questioning, De Bruyne told City’s in-house media channel: “In my mind, I’m on 22 [assists]. I’ve been stolen twice by the league—especially away at Arsenal. But, in the end, you get what they say.”

In an interview years later, De Bruyne was still fixated by that lost assist in a 3–0 thumping at the Emirates. After opening the scoring, City’s creative lynchpin burst to the byline and rolled the ball across the box for Raheem Sterling to double the visitors’ lead. De Bruyne would complete the first-half rout and was widely hailed for a two-goal and one-assist performance. Even the Premier League’s official X account claimed that De Bruyne had taken his tally to 10 goals created at the time.

However, a subsequent review of the footage found that De Bruyne’s cross took a deflection off Arsenal center back Calum Chambers before reaching Sterling. Opta, the Premier League’s official stats provider, retroactively deemed that it did not fit the threshold of an assist and so chalked it off.

Interestingly, Opta’s own definition of an assist does allow some scope for rival interference: “If the assist is deflected by an opposition player,” the definition reads, “it must be deemed as traveling to the goalscorer irrespective of the deflection.” De Bruyne’s cross does not obviously change direction after lightly brushing Chambers’s studs, yet it still didn’t go down as an assist.

This supposed snub was inadvertently needled by the Premier League when they released a video celebrating De Bruyne’s 100 assists in the competition. The montage began with a clip of this contentious effort against Arsenal.

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Fernandes Reveals Interesting Reaction to Record-Tying Assist

Gr𝟴teful, Hon𝟮𝟬red, Proud. 𝗪𝗘 did it! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/MoB9r3UAAv

— Bruno Fernandes (@B_Fernandes8) May 17, 2026

Fernandes has himself been denied an important assist by a deflection. The United skipper had the chance to notch his 20th of the season against Liverpool earlier this month and many thought he had when he nodded the ball across the box for Benjamin Šeško to bundle it over the line. However, a touch from goalkeeper Freddie Woodman, which did change the direction of the ball, ensured it was struck from the record.

Once he finally hit the magic number against Forest, Fernandes was more interested in how he teammates came to celebrate with him as much as the goalscorer Bryan Mbeumo.

“I wouldn’t say relieved, but very happy, very proud,” he reflected after the game. “Obviously, everyone knows it was something that, when you start getting close to that, you start thinking a lot. A good thing is that it doesn’t change the way I play because I’m there to serve my teammates, try to make them score goals.

“I’m very grateful to see their reaction more than mine because I wanted Bryan to celebrate his goal. I didn't want to make it about myself because at the end of the day scoring the goal is the biggest thing in football. And all credit to Bryan because if he doesn’t put it in the back of the net, my record will not be there. So these records only come if your teammates do the things right as you do.”

Another of Fernandes’s teammates, Casemiro, revealed that United’s final-day fixture against Brighton & Hove Albion will partially revolve around getting the skipper that 21st assist. “I think now after the Champions League game we’ll work a little bit more harder for him,” the Brazilian smiled.

“He can break this record. I feel like he deserves so much. He helps everyone. I think he’s a beautiful captain for the club. He passed through hard moments, and he deserves to have these beautiful moments also. What a player, what a guy.”

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