There's a very credible argument to suggest Sadio Mané has been Liverpool's most consistently influential performer throughout the calendar year so far.

He's taken his goalscoring up another level, and is established in the elite bracket of the world's finest footballers – even receiving Lionel Messi's first choice vote for the FIFA Best Men's Player award last month.

With nine goals in all competitions already (without taking any penalties), Mané is well on track to match or surpass last season's tally of 26, having improved in that regard every season he's had since joining Liverpool from Southampton in the summer of 2016.

But there's one genuinely surprising and rather bizarre statistic which shows that Mané only registered two official assists in the entirety of last season, only one of which came in the Premier League – setting up Mohamed Salah's opening goal in the 0-3 away win against Watford at Vicarage Road in December.

So far this season, he only has one official assist to his name, supplying Roberto Firmino in the 1-2 away win against Southampton, meaning he has just three assists in total since the start of 2018/19.

(Image: Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

By comparison to the rest of the front three, Salah and Firmino both have 14 assists apiece in the same time period – almost five times Mané's total. Even Virgil van Dijk managed four assists last season from centre-back, doubling Mané's total, which sounds absurd on the face of it.

Yet when it comes to expected assists (xA), which measures the average likelihood of any particular pass leading to a goal, Mané's average of 0.21xA per 90 minutes is higher than Salah's (0.18), with Firmino some distance in front on 0.36, which would suggest the quality of Mané's chance creation is actually of a similar level to Salah, and the finishing (which is out of his control) just isn't converting them into assists.

In terms of key passes, Mané's avaerage of 2.05 per 90 minutes is higher than both Salah (2.03) and Firmino (1.31), and second in the entire squad only to Trent Alexander-Arnold (3.33), which again demonstrates that he is regularly giving the ball to teammates in shooting positions.

There's also the fact that assists are an inherently limited metric, in that while they are useful to some degree, they don't always paint an accurate picture of a player's influence on what actually happens on the pitch.

For instance, Salah's first goal against Red Bull Salzburg was created almost entirely by Mané supplying a perfect cross to Firmino, from which the goalkeeper then fumbled his header for Salah to roll home from close range. Mané doesn't get the assist in that situation, but it arises specifically because of his excellent delivery in the first place.

(Image: Photo by Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)

Again, in the 1-4 win against Genk in midweek, Mané wasn't actually credited with an official assist for Salah's goal, despite playing the ball into the feet of the Egyptian, because the Genk defender was deemed to have got a significant enough touch on the ball before Salah wriggled away and scored to render Mané's pass insufficient to be defined as an assist. But again, it was he who created the opportunity.

Mané, of course, also creates an abundance of opportunities indirectly by the intelligence and tenacity of his pressing out of possession, as well as his proven ability to draw fouls in the box and win crucial penalties, as he did in stoppage-time against Leicester City to give James Milner the chance to secure the three-points from the spot (as he also did during the title run in against Fulham away last season).

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So, while there is obviously some scope for Mané to add more assists and improve even further in the creative department, the numbers alone are in no way indicative of a major flaw in his game.

It's a strange quirk, and it would be no real surprise if suddenly Mané's key passes in the final third start being converted into assists on a more regular basis over the rest of the season.