Bruno Fernandes leads Man Utd trio in Spurs-free list of top 10 most overworked Premier League players

There are some tired bodies and weary minds around the Premier League at this time.

Here, then, are the 10 Premier League outfield players to have racked up the most minutes this season. Goalkeepers don’t count, obviously, because they don’t get tired do they? But every minute played by everyone else in all competitions for club and country since the start of the season is fair game.

That obviously means a list dominated by the European teams, but that’s also kind of the point. Their lads are going to be the busiest and weariest. But with the Europa League final coming up there’s one team in it with significantly wearier key players. Injury crises aren’t all bad, in a way.

10) Noussair Mazraoui (Man Utd and Morocco) – 4655 minutes
Played in six positions this season for a rotten Manchester United, starting 31 Premier League games, featuring for every minute of the failed FA Cup campaign, playing 10 full 90-minute games in Europe and even twice coming off the bench in the Carabao seemingly just for sh*ts and giggles.

Heart problems did give him an October rest for Morocco, but he was back in November and March with four more 90-minute stints, alternating between left-back and right-back because why not?

9) Mohamed Salah (Liverpool and Egypt) – 4666 minutes
Not perhaps the most remarkable numbers of Salah’s remarkable season but he has started every one of Liverpool’s 35 Premier League games this season and none of his handful of substitutions have occurred before the 73rd minute.

Rested, along with most of Liverpool’s big guns, for the PSV dead rubber at the end of the Champions League league phase but other than that played all but about half-an-hour of Liverpool’s campaign there.

There’s another few hundred minutes of Carabao action in the pot, including all but the last eight minutes of the two-legged semi-final against Tottenham and technically the entirety of the final.

Indeed, all that is keeping Salah from the business end of this list is a lighter-than-typical international schedule. He was released early from the October break and not called up at all for the November games, meaning he has made only five international appearances this season rather than the numbers chalked up by some others.

8) Morgan Rogers (Aston Villa and England) – 4704 minutes
Has started all but one of Villa’s 48 Premier League and Champions League games, missing only a 2-1 win over Leicester after accruing one yellow card too many, and now also starting to get meaningful international minutes having broken through to the senior England set-up this season.

7) Declan Rice (Arsenal and England) – 4734 minutes
Rarely gets much chance for a rest with either club or country, having started – and generally finished – 31 of the 34 Premier League games for which he has been available this season. The small handful of major games he’s missed for both Arsenal and England can generally be explained by suspension or the broken toe he suffered around the November international break, including the rare luxury of watching an entire Premier League game from the bench against Nottingham Forest.

Like most of Arsenal’s key men he got some rest at least in the Champions League, playing only a few minutes at the end of the largely unimportant final group game against Girona and only an hour or so of the entirely unimportant second leg against PSV in the last 16.

His ridiculous free-kick double v Real Madrid did not earn him a rest for the dead rubber with Brentford, though he was taken off after 75 minutes.

6) Diogo Dalot (Man United and Portugal) – 4834 minutes
Left-back, right-back, left wing-back, right wing-back. One side of the pitch or the other, in one United manager’s system or another, he’s been out there. United’s Mr Dependable.

Had he not cannily got himself 150 minutes of rest by getting sent off after an hour of the FA Cup clash at Arsenal and missed their last four games through injury, he’d be nudging towards top spot here.

What catches the eye with Dalot is that pre-injury there was no respite. No competition where he is spared. He has started all the Premier League games for which he was available, started 10 and played 45 minutes of the other one of United’s 11 Europa League games before the injury as well as at least an hour of all five of United’s games in the FA Cup and Carabao Cup. He even played 90 minutes in the Community Shield.

Portugal are, at least, a bit more forgiving, allowing Dalot the rare luxury this season of watching an entire game from the bench against Scotland while requiring a full 90 from him in only three of their other seven games.

5) Josko Gvardiol (Man City and Croatia) – 4858 minutes
Manchester City signed one of the best young centre-backs in the world and Pep Guardiola promptly turned him into a relentless goalscoring force of a left-back, which is a very good bit.

Has missed only one game in the Premier League and Champions League this season and even got a run-out in both City’s Carabao games. Which seems a bit much.

Also near ever-present across eight games and four international breaks for Croatia, who foolishly still appear to consider him a centre-back.

4) Youri Tielemans (Aston Villa and Belgium) – 4878 minutes
Started every single Premier League and Champions League game for Villa until missing out through injury against Bournemouth this weekend, and missed only 17 minutes of Villa’s run to the FA Cup semi-finals.

Meanwhile, Belgium gave him a rest for their November Nations League fixtures, both of which Belgium lost. He was back in harness for a full 90 of the 3-1 defeat to Ukraine but suspended for the 3-0 second-leg win.

3) Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool and Netherlands) – 5056 minutes
Hasn’t missed a single minute of Liverpool’s stunning Premier League season and also played every minute of the seven Champions League league phase games that actually mattered as well as the entirety of an exhausting and ultimately futile pair of last-16 games against Paris St-Germain.

You’d imagine some kind of Premier League rest might be coming his way, but given he wasn’t rested for Southampton at home in between those PSG games you do wonder. And he does understandably look like he could do with a breather.

Hadn’t been involved in the Carabao until the semi-finals but played both legs against Spurs and was apparently on the pitch for the entirety of the final against Newcastle, not that you’d have noticed. Looked uncharacteristically off the pace at various times in a tense win over Everton and does look like he could do with a bit of a rest once the title formalities are formalised.

A red card against Hungary for two quick bookings late on in that game saved him a bit of Nations League work for Netherlands but still over 500 minutes to chuck in the pot there.

2) William Saliba (Arsenal and France) – 5231 minutes
Truly extraordinary numbers, especially when you consider that Saliba missed two games completely through injury, was able to be rested for Arsenal’s final league phase game in the Champions League and the entirely irrelevant second leg of the last-16 cakewalk against PSV, and also saved himself 150 minutes of Premier League toil with that red card at Bournemouth that was, like all Arsenal red cards, entirely without controversy.

In part, this is the centre-back’s lot. They are so very rarely the players given a few minutes’ rest here and there at the end of games long won, or when the manager is looking to shake things up in the closing stages.

And you can add international duty to that as well, with seven 90-minute appearances for France in the Nations League to also factor in here.

1) Bruno Fernandes (Man Utd and Portugal) – 5345 minutes
A couple of striking things about this Bruno effort after he became the first Premier League player to tick past the 4000-minute mark and then just carried on being asked to play all the minutes in all the games.

Firstly, he’s clearly completely indispensable to Man United despite it not really being entirely clear Ruben Amorim knows precisely how best to use him in his system. He knows only that use him he must, as he just keeps showing. Especially against Arsenal, but especially against Real Sociedad and then once again against Ipswich.

Secondly, it’s doubly impressive to have racked up more minutes than any other player in the Premier League during a season where you’ve been sent off not once, not twice but thrice. Even with one of those being rescinded and thus not compounded by suspension, it’s some effort.

The final minutes at Porto and the ensuing suspension against Fenerbahce are the only minutes Bruno has missed in the run to the Europa League final, while he has started every Premier League game for which he wasn’t suspended.

He even started against Newcastle United when some of his fellow senior teammates were rested ahead of the vital and lengthy and ridiculous second leg v Lyon.

Played all 330 minutes of United’s exhausting and (despite his own considerable efforts) futile FA Cup defence as well as full 90s in the Carabao against both Leicester and Tottenham. With a cool 630 minutes of Nations League action for Portugal thrown in for good measure.

By definition, there are few players on this list their teams can cope without, but few feel more important to the whole feel of their teams than Bruno and Man United. And that’s probably because of rather than despite the fact they still so often look quite ropey even when he is there.

Across Europe’s top five leagues, Federico Valverde (5508) is the only outfielder to have played more minutes this season.