5,000 passes and counting for Leon
12th March
Leon Britton is no stranger to a milestone - and now he's passed another incredible landmark!
The 31-year-old made his 5000th pass in the Barclays Premier League during the home draw with Crystal Palace last time out, which included his first top-flight assist.
With the club revelling in the top flight, Britton's passing expertise are now more well-known. The midfielder shot into the limelight after having the best pass completion rate in world football in January 2012, while earlier that season he successfully made all 67 passes during a 3-1 home win over Bolton.
It was a season that would see Britton finish with the best pass completion rate of 93.4 per cent - 2,110 successfully made from 2,558 attempted.
Since that victory over the Trotters over two years ago, Britton has repeated that feat another five times - though four of those have come as a substitute.
And his latest landmark of surging past 5,000 passes is another milestone which he is delighted to have achieved.
"I'm not someone who looks too much into stats, but it's great to hear I've made more than 5,000 passes -I've had to wait quite a while for a long-overdue assist though," he joked.
"Ball retention and passing it about is obviously a massive part of our game, and I'm in the role that links with the defence and gets things moving from there.
"Some players can hit superb 50 or 60-yard passes that cut open a defence, but my role is focussed on five, ten or 15 yard-passes that bring team-mates into play or maybe drag an opponent out of position.
"I've had a few of these positive stats since we got into the Premier League, and it's a reflection on the style of the club.
"We started playing this style of football in League One when no-one gave us a hope of succeeding with it. But we've proved those people wrong as we are now doing it in arguably the best league in the world."
Passmaster Britton - the Premier League stats
Total passes made: 5,009
Total passes completed: 4,621 (92.3%)
Season 2011/12 - Average passes per 90 minutes: 76.3
2012/13: 62.7
2013/14: 73.4
