Most successful teams have had at least two players steal the show in attack on their way to league title glory. Be it Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp for Arsenal or Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney for Manchester United, these duos produced the goods on a regular basis and laid waste to defences in the league time and again.
This season, too, has seen a number of pairings thrive up front and it comes as no surprise that the best goal-assist combinations have come from teams battling it out for the league title. We look at the five best duos in the 2015/16 league season as we enter the final two months of the campaign.
Honourable mentions
Olivier Giroud & Mesut Ozil (Arsenal): 6 goals
The French striker only had a good mid-season where he scored 18 goals in all competitions between October and January but has not been able to find the net in the league since. A brace in the FA Cup have been the only goals he scored since mid-January.
Ozil, on the other hand, raced away to 18 assists so far this season – just two short of Thierry Henry’s EPL record of 20 assists in a season. Will the record be his by season end? He has eight games to break it.
Odion Ighalo & Troy Deeney (Watford): 6 goals
The Hornets have had a topsy-turvy season since gaining promotion to the Premier League. Playing a majority of their games with a 4-4-2 formation, they were in the top half of the Premier League table, going as high as 7th place at the halfway stage. But their drop in form also coincided with the barren run of Odion Ighalo.
The Nigerian striker has scored only one Premier League goal in 2016 – a far cry from his prime form in 2015 when he was the highest goalscorer in England’s top four tiers for the calendar year. Along with Troy Deeney, they proved to be a nuisance up front, even benefiting from a number of penalties.
5) Harry Kane & Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur): 7 goals
Although Harry Kane started the season poorly, not scoring his first goal until the end of September, he now leads the Golden Boot race in the Premier League with 21 goals. He narrowly missed out on the prize last season having only become a regular in Mauricio Pochettino’s starting lineup after the original forward line failed.
He hasn’t looked back since and even got an England call-up, scoring just 79 seconds into his debut against Lithuania. Now a regular in the squad, Kane has proved that he can deliver on the big stage as well, scoring crucial goals against other top six teams such as Manchester City, Arsenal, West Ham and Leicester City this season – twice in some cases.
Dele Alli has also come through the ranks and become a crucial member of Pochettino’s squad. With 9 assists so far this season, 7 of those have seen Kane find the back of the net.
The 19-year-old also made his England debut last year thanks to his impressive performances and Kane believes their partnership for their club augurs well for England.
“Obviously, it depends if we play together, that’s down to the manager who he picks,” Kane said. “But we do have a great understanding.
4) Jamie Vardy & Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City): 8 goals
Fairy tales and miracles do not come any better than Leicester City’s campaign this season. After barely escaping relegation last season, they now top the table with a five-point lead over the Spurs with seven games to go.
While Claudio Ranieri has rightly received a lot of praise, much of their success comes down to the tireless and prolific Jamie Vardy and the previously unknown Algerian winger Riyad Mahrez. Vardy has scored 19 goals this season and also broke a record for most consecutive games scored in the EPL.
On the other hand, Mahrez looks all set to take home the PFA Player of the Year award for his 16 goals and 11 assists so far. But judging by their current position, they will be more than happy with just a winners’ medal.
3) Luis Suarez & Lionel Messi (Barcelona): 8 goals
The trio of Messi-Suarez-Neymar (the well-known MSN) have destroyed the competition in Spain and Europe ever since the Uruguayan striker moved from Liverpool to Barcelona.
Winning a treble last season, which included wins over major league champions in the Champions League, the trio have continued in that rich vein of form in the 2015/16 campaign as well.
Many teams have tried to stop them from scoring at will and while the Catalan club have lost a couple of games this season, they still haven’t managed to put a leash on MSN. Suarez and Messi are in the race for the Pichichi award having scored 26 and 22 goals respectively.
Apart from their travails from the penalty spot, the trio are a winning machine and notched up 100 goals in all competitions in the begining of March!
2) Edinson Cavani & Zlatan Ibrahimovic (PSG): 8 goals
Paris Saint-Germain have already wrapped up the Ligue 1 title and became the first team to win it with eight matches to spare after a 9-0 demolition of Troyes. In truth, the league title was decided long ago when second-placed AS Monaco were closer to the relegation zone than table-toppers PSG.
The pair of Ibrahimovic and Cavani were bought by the Qatari owners with the idea of dominating France and Europe. The former has been accomplished, but the Champions League still eludes them.
But the way PSG have dominated Ligue 1 with clubs such as Lyon and Marseille falling by the wayside, it is no wonder why the capital club won their fourth straight title. Ibrahimovic himself has scored 27 goals and is still going strong at the age of 34 while Cavani has scored 14 so far.
1) Neymar & Luis Suarez (Barcelona): 10 goals
When Lionel Messi injured his knee in the end of September 2015, Barcelona were put to the test for the next few weeks. Would Neymar and Luis Suarez step up in the Argentine magician’s absence?
There was never a doubt. The South American pair saw Barcelona through a tough period when they suffered just one loss at the hands of Sevilla – the last time they lost a game this season. So effective were the pair that Messi’s rushed return in the Clasico was not even required as Neymar and Suarez scored three in the 4-0 win at the Bernabeu.
The pair proved that the club could thrive without Messi in the lineup and they were just as ruthless with or without him.
Note: All stats taken from WhoScored. In case of a tie, the duos were ranked based on minutes played.
