Messi has been a huge FLOP – just look at who his assists were against!
Carlo Garganese
- 13 Apr 2022 17:45 BST
- 3 min read
Lionel Messi’s P.R team have been in full force over recent days, desperately trying to rewrite the history books.
On Saturday, Messi produced a hattrick of assists in PSG’s 6-1 thrashing of lowly Clermont in Ligue 1.
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That took his number of goal contributions to 11 in his last nine games.
It also, interestingly, means that he has 13 assists in Ligue 1 this term. Only two players in Europe’s big five championships have more assists this season in league football.
They are Bayern Munich’s Thomas Muller with 16 and Messi’s PSG teammate Kylian Mbappe with 15.
So all of a sudden, the Messi P.R brigade have started arguing that Leo hasn’t been that bad after all since his free transfer from Barcelona last summer.
What they fail to disclose, though, is that if you dig a little deeper into who Messi has assisted against and there is nothing impressive about it whatsoever.
READ MORE: How much does Lionel Messi earn and what is the football legend’s net worth?
Indeed, of his 13 assists, eight of them have been against teams in the bottom four of Ligue 1.
He has five assists against 18th placed St Etienne over their two matches, creating a hattrick of goals in the 3-1 win in November and another two earlier this month.
Messi also has the aforementioned three assists from last Saturday against 17th placed Clermont.
Kylian Mbappé, único jugador aplaudido por el Parque de los Príncipes en el anuncio por megafonía del once.@diarioas pic.twitter.com/vU3T7OLSjy
— Andrés Onrubia Ramos (@AndiOnrubia) March 13, 2022
His other assists include one against 13th placed Reims and another versus mid-table Nantes.
He only has one assist this season against a team in the top five; third-placed Rennes. His other two goals were created versus Monaco (6th) and Lille (7th).
Messi created no goals in his seven Champions League games – and although he did find the net five times in the group stages, he completely went missing as PSG were eliminated by Real Madrid in the last-16. He also missed a penalty.
The 34-year-old was signed to make the difference in the Champions League but he fell well short.
And despite his high number of assists in Ligue 1, in truth he has not been a key player domestically either. The PSG fans know this, which is why they booed him a few weeks back.
In total, Messi has only three Ligue 1 goals all season.
However you wish to spin it, his free transfer from Barcelona has been a failure.
