Darren Anderton is top of our assists list - here’s why team-mates say he’s ‘up there with the best’
Wed 22 March 2023, 15:45|
Tottenham Hotspur
Heung-Min Son reached his half-century against Southampton, but he still has a way to go to catch our ‘king of assists’ in the Premier League, Darren Anderton.
The England midfielder registered 67 assists in his 12 years at Spurs, during which he formed a telepathic relationship with striker Teddy Sheringham, much like Sonny and Harry Kane today. Sonny and Harry are now the Premier League’s most lethal duo with 45 goal combinations, fully nine clear of Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard. Before that, Darren and Teddy combined for 27, and remain in the league’s top five.
Now 51, Darren also racked up 34 goals for us in the Premier League, taking his combined goal/assist tally to 101 between 1992-2004. He was our record appearance maker in the competition with 299 until Hugo Lloris reached 300 at the start of the 2021/22 season. Darren made 358 appearances for us in all competitions and played until the age of 36 with spells at Birmingham, Wolves and Bournemouth. He’s now a pundit and living in the USA.
What made him so good? After Sonny reached 50 assists, we thought we’d talk to the players who know Darren best, his team-mates, including, of course, Teddy, his skipper Gary Mabbutt and fellow midfielder David Howells.
Teddy Sheringham
277 appearances/124 goals - 1992-2003
“He’s up there with the best, without a doubt. I had a lovely understanding with him. He knew if I was coming short or wanted the ball long, just an understanding you get sometimes with players. He’s in my top five of players I played with. It was a natural thing. You get times on the pitch when you look up and see something, you get eye contact, that coordination with a player that means when you look up, you get that instant eye contact... I’d put my hand up, or point to the floor, show where I wanted the ball and ‘bang’, not only did he see the pass, but he also invariably made it, as well."
The corner routine...
For a couple of months in the 1994//95 season, Darren Anderton and Teddy Sheringham developed a corner routine that produced goals against Wimbledon, Newcastle and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
Teddy: "In terms of the corner routine, I worked it out that if I moved one way, the defender backed off two steps, and as soon as you are backing off, you’ve got someone’s number. I told him to play the corner with a good bit of pace to my right foot, I will move the defender and get a shot in. It worked for six, seven weeks, but Andy Gray kept on showing everyone on Sky’s Monday Night Football how it worked, and people cottoned on. That was the first type of analysis like that. It wasn’t the end of it, but it was great while it still lasted.”
Watch - Darren/Teddy's corner goal at Chelsea
Gary Mabbutt
611 appearances/38 goals - 1982-1998 - Darren's captain for six years
“I was very lucky to play with some fantastic players and Darren is up there with the best of them. His ability, control, the way he struck the ball... he used to work on it in training a lot, worked hard. It frustrates me when people talk about Darren and injuries, he played 350 games for us! All those assists led to goals, but it doesn’t give you any idea of the ‘assists’ he had when a player should have scored, playing players through, crosses into the box, that was his game, the vision to see the runs, getting in position himself to get the ball into them, a lot of it is lost, the amount of opportunities he created. He was part of our ‘Famous Five’ in Ossie’s time, we played some wonderful football and Darren was the creator with all those incredible players around him. He made things happen.”
David Howells
335 appearances/27 goals - 1986-98
“I remember quite vividly when Darren first came to the club, quite a shy lad, I remember running around Mill Hill, chatting to him, he was very shy. Straight away, it became apparent what a talent he was when we started to train and play. He just had a lovely way of moving, his stride, the way he struck the ball as well. It was almost a lazy strike of the ball, but it used to ping when he struck it, like a golfer. It was so pure every time. It was so exciting to see a young player like that at the club. He was a fantastic player, clever, intelligent. I remember when we beat Arsenal at home and Gica Popescu scored. It was a Darren assist, his movement to stay onside was class and then the cross was perfect for Gica to run onto and tap it in. The consideration of the pass into Gica... a lot of players might have panicked and put it in too high or too fast, but it was absolutely perfect. He didn’t have to break stride. That was classic Darren Anderton.”
