MANCHESTER UNITED defender Harry Maguire has played more minutes than any other professional footballer in 2020, according to new data.
The England international, 27, played 4,745 minutes up to 17 December, the CIES Football Observatory has found.
That put him 401 minutes ahead of Manchester City defender Ruben Dias among outfield players, and five ahead of Marcelo Lomba, the goalkeeper with Brazilian club Internacional.
Player workload is in the spotlight more than ever before amid a compressed 2020-21 calendar, following the suspension of competition in almost all leagues around the world in the spring due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi is third in the rankings for outfield players M(4,293) with Maguire’s United team-mate Bruno Fernandes fourth on 4,164.
Swedish centre-back Victor Lindelof is in seventh place, to make it three Red Devils in the top 10.
The presence of four Premier League-based players so high in the rankings for outfield players comes after a third unsuccessful vote to reintroduce the option of using five substitutes per match.
Every other major European league, plus Uefa’s main club competitions and the EFL have adopted the measure to help managers rest players, but 10 Premier League clubs voted against it at a shareholders’ meeting last week.
Liverpool’s Scottish full-back Andrew Robertson sits in 12th in the standings on 4,049 minutes with two Championship players – Reading’s Michael Morrison and Brentford’s Ethan Pinnock – rounding out the top 20 on 3,976 and 3,968 minutes respectively.
