No player in Europe's top 10 leagues provided more assists in 2020 than Paris Saint-Germain's Lionel Messi.

The former Barcelona man finished with a total of 26 last year, two more than Dominik Szoboszlai in second place.

However, in 2021, Messi's creative output has waned to the point where he doesn't even feature among the 20 players with the most assists across all club competitions in the calendar year.

Pretty surprising, right?

Messi's current total of nine means he's sitting in 102nd-place over on Transfermarkt.

So which player has usurped the 34-year-old and become Europe's assist king? Well, the answer to that question lies in the 20-man list below.

Let's begin...

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The 20 players with the most assists in 2021 so far

20. Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid)

Games: 46

Assists: 13

19. Rasmus Kristensen (Red Bull Salzburg)

Games: 46

Assists: 13

18. Borna Sosa (Stuttgart)

Games: 29

Assists: 13

17. Paul Pogba (Manchester United)

Games: 36

Assists: 14

Pogba with United

16. Kelvin Yeboah (Sturm Graz)

Games: 41

Assists: 14

15. Duvan Zapata (Atalanta)

Games: 43

Assists: 14

14. Nicolo Barella (Inter Milan)

Games: 41

Assists: 14

13. Kylian Mbappe (Paris Saint-Germain)

Games: 44

Assists: 15

Mbappe with PSG

12. Steven Berghuis (Ajax)

Games: 36

Assists: 15

11. Stefan Nutz (SV Ried)

Games: 35

Assists: 15

10. Erling Haaland (Borussia Dortmund)

Games: 37

Assists: 15

9. Jakob Jantscher (Sturm Graz)

Games: 44

Assists: 16

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8. Leroy Sane (Bayern Munich)

Games: 43

Assists: 17

7. Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United)

Games: 50

Assists: 17

6. Mehdi Taremi (FC Porto)

Games: 45

Assists: 18

5. Marco Reus (Borussia Dortmund)

Games: 44

Assists: 18

Reus with Dortmund

4. Filip Kostic (Eintracht Frankfurt)

Games: 33

Assists: 21

3. Michael Liendl (Wolfsberger)

Games: 40

Assists: 20

2. Thomas Muller (Bayern Munich)

Games: 40

Assists: 26

1. Dusan Tadic (Ajax)

Games: 46

Assists: 30

Tadic with Ajax

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Amazingly, Tadic has already surpassed Messi's tally of 26 from last year with just less than two months of 2021 remaining.

Unreal stuff from Dusan.

Sane and Muller's impressive numbers go some way to explaining why Robert Lewandowski has been recording such extraordinary goalscoring numbers.

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Between them, the German attacking duo have assisted a colleague for a goal 43 times this year, which is absolutely exceptional.

If ever you needed figures to back up why many believe Bayern are the best team on the planet right now, there they are...

Quiz: Can you name the footballer based on their Wikipedia page?