Bruno Fernandes' record-breaking Man United assist may not count as footage emerges

Bruno Fernandes broke the Premier League assist record on Sunday but some fans are convinced that the crucial contribution on the final day shouldn't have counted.

Fernandes, who was named the Premier League Player of the Season for the 2025/26 season, pulled level with Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne when he registered his 20th assist for Bryan Mbeumo's goal against Nottingham Forest at Old Trafford last week.

United signed off a solid league campaign with a 3-0 win away at Brighton, with Mbeumo and Fernandes both on target.

Patrick Dorgu opened the scoring with a header from a Fernandes corner, with the Portuguese appearing to get his record-breaking 21st assist of the season.

The Premier League presented Fernandes with a Golden Playmaker Award and recognised his achievement as the top assister in a single season with a special graphic on social media.

In response to the feat, Fernandes told Sky Sports: "It’s great. I feel very happy for that. Very proud moment, obviously it is not something I would dream or think about until I got this close."

However, upon closer inspection, many are claiming that Fernandes should not be given the all-important assist.

That's because zoomed in footage doing the rounds on social media appears to show that the header from Dorgu struck the bar before hitting Brighton goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen in what looked like an own goal.

Clearest own goal you’ll ever see pic.twitter.com/xWbSsg3fSQ

— 444 Stringz (@444Stringz) May 24, 2026

In this scenario, the assist would not go to Fernandes and the record assist would be denied as a result.

There has been no confirmation from the Premier League as to whether the assist belongs to Fernandes, who will no doubt he hoping the initial goal awarding decision remains to cement his place in history.

Kevin De Bruyne believes he holds Premier League assist record

Henry set the assist record back in the 2002/03 campaign before De Bruyne matched it for Manchester City in the 2019/20 season.

However, the Belgian believes the Premier League took one off him against Arsenal as his cross for Raheem Sterling in a 3-0 win at the Emirates in December 2019 was deemed to have taken a deflection off the studs of Calum Chambers.

Despite that, it was included at the very start of his 100 Premier League assists compilation.

A few months later and De Bruyne bemoaned the decision, telling The Athletic's Ornstein and Chapman podcast, "I still don't understand it".

After the final game of the season against Norwich, De Bruyne said he felt he was "stolen" on two occasions.

Speaking to City's official channel, De Bruyne said: “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.”

He again brought it up again in an interview with the Premier League, commenting: "They still took one away from me, against Arsenal."

"They took one away, and when they celebrated my 100th assist, they put it as the first clip in their video!

"Can you imagine that, how wrong they were?"