Official A-League Statistics

Glancing through the player statistics on the A-League website this morning, I noticed a couple of strange inclusions and exclusions regarding the goal assists.

Assists are sometimes a bit of a subjective grey area, but some rather glaring errors seem to populate the judgement calls made during the statistical analysis of last weekend's footage.

Queensland's Simon Lynch, who clearly supplied a final ball for Dario Vidosic's goal against Perth, is not credited with an assist.

Ante Milicic, meanwhile, is given an assist for his block of Tyler Simpson's clearance, an effort that led to Lynch's goal. I'm not sure if this was so much a clear instance of an assist to Milicic as a mistake from Simpson.

Sasho Petrovski gets a slightly dubious assist as well. His attempt to control a high ball into the box resulted in failure, the ball bouncing away from his poor first touch towards Iain Fyfe. Yet he gets an assist for Fyfe's subsequent goal, as if he'd made a deliberate pass.

In yet another problematic issue, Alessandro is not credited with an assist for earning Melbourne's penalty. He didn't take the spot kick himself, so why has he not been given an assist?

Some consistency here would be much appreciated!