REVEALED: Which Sunderland players have played the most minutes this season?

Who have Sunderland relied on most during the Championship season so far?

Michael Graham | Dec 14, 2022

REVEALED: Which Sunderland players have played the most minutes this season? /

Sunderland are nearly at the halfway point of their Championship season, and it has felt a bit chaotic in terms of team selection.

There have been two managers and an awful lot of injuries, so the club can definitely be forgiven for appearing to struggle to field a consistent line-up.

We thought we'd take a look, then, at which Sunderland players have played the most minutes this season, but it was also done with Patrick Roberts in mind somewhat.

It has felt like the former Manchester City man has been badly under-used this season, but on the other hand he has also featured in 18 of the 22 games.

We are only going to look at outfield players too, as we all know that Anthony Patterson has played every minute of the season so far.

Anyway, feel free to click through the gallery below to see which players have played perhaps too many, which haven't played nearly enough, and which surprise player has featured in all 22 matches this season without feeling like a key player at all.

Ross Stewart is a good starting place here because he provides a point of reference for the rest. We all know that he has played just seven games this season, but he played every minute of them. That is 630 minutes, or 31.8% of Sunderland’s season so far.

Aji Alese struggled to get into the Sunderland team when he first arrived but he has been preferred over Dennis Cirkin at left back since the World Cup break. Is that due to Mowbray rating him higher or the coaching staff managing the minutes of players as part of their development? Hard to say really. Anyway, he has played 800 minutes (40.4%) so far this season.

That’s right, Amad Diallo has played fewer minutes this season than Patrick Roberts. That probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, given Sunderland had already played seven games before signing him. His five goals are even more impressive considering he has played just 831 minutes – 42% of Sunderland’s season.

Patrick Roberts being so low on this list kind of proves the point that he is not used enough. He has played 926 minutes so far, which is 46.8% of the season. Interestingly, that has been spread out over 18 matches, meaning only one established Sunderland player has played fewer minutes per match than Roberts.

Ellis Simms has had his injury problems this season, so it’s not a surprise to see him low on the list. He has played 50.3% of Sunderland’s total minutes this season, which is 996.

Remember we said only one established Sunderland player has played fewer minutes per match than Patrick Roberts this season? That player is Elliot Embleton. He has actually featured in every single one of Sunderland’s Championship games this season. Yes, it surprised me too. That has only amounted to 1,000 minutes, though, or 50.5%.

Dennis Cirkin has found himself out of the starting line-up in the last two games, although he has featured in both from the bench. He has missed six matches through injury, though, meaning his minutes are lower than you’d maybe expect. He has played in 64.2% of Sunderland’s season so far, or 1,272 minutes if you prefer.

Like Dennis Cirkin, Lynden Gooch has missed six games, although he has been able to rack up more minutes in the Sunderland team than his fellow full-back. He has played 1,379 minutes of the season so far, which is 69.6% of it.

Corry Evans feels like he is kind of always there, but he has missed two games – one through injury and one through suspension. He has also started a couple on the bench. Nevertheless, he has amassed 1,545 minutes during Sunderland’s season so far – 78%.

Evans has had fewer games than his regular midfield partner Dan Neil, which perhaps suggests Sunderland have not really been as flexible as they maybe should have been in midfield this season. Neil was overused to the point of suffering mid-season fatigue last year, and he could be in danger of it happening again. He has played 78.6% of Sunderland’s minutes this season, which amounts to 1,557.

Alex Pritchard is the second of Sunderland’s three outfield players to feature in every game this season, and he is the third of the usual central midfield trio to have played an awful lot of minutes. Sunderland really don’t rotate this area enough, do they? Anyway, Pritchard tends to be taken off in games – he is very much like Steed Malbranque in that regard – averaging 73 minutes per game. That’s 1,600 minutes (80.8%).

You just can’t keep Luke O’Nien down! Every year he seems to be written off by fans during the summer and the club try to buy someone to replace him, yet he just keeps on stepping up again, increasing his level, and no one can get the shirt from him. This season has been no different. He has taken full advantage of Dan Ballard’s injury to feature in an impressive 1,687 minutes. That is 85.2% of the season so far.

Sunderland invested a lot of money to bring Jack Clarke back to the club on a permanent deal and he has been a key player in the first 22 games of the season. He has started 20 of those games and played 89.8% of Sunderland’s season so far – that’s 1,778.

It will come as no surprise that Danny Batth has been Sunderland’s most-used outfield player this season. He has started every game and been brilliant in most of them. In fact, he has missed just 27 minutes of the season so far, usually when he is subbed off for another attacker when chasing the game. That’s 1,973 minutes in total, or 99.6% of the season.

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