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Liverpool were spinning plates across four different competitions and had the majority of their first-team players representing their country in 2023/24, but who clocked the most minutes?
Virgil van Dijk‘s honest assessment after his Euros campaign summed up the 2023/24 season, saying “It has been a very, very, very long year, a tough year.”
It was an emotional rollercoaster, for one, with Jurgen Klopp‘s exit, plus the demands of club and international football – which led to a handful of Reds playing more than 60 games!
Liverpool’s standard 38 Premier League game season was added to by 20 matches across the League Cup triumph, the FA Cup and the Europa League – totalling 58 games from start to finish.
When you add in international friendlies, qualifiers and tournaments, the demands on the players become ridiculous, irrespective of how much they earn for doing so.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at Liverpool’s top 10 for minutes played last season.
Club + Country – Top 10
In the end, only one player accumulated more than 5,000 minutes for club and country. That was Virgil van Dijk, who played 5,395 minutes across 64 matches.
As captain of Liverpool and the Netherlands, his opportunity to rest or be taken out of a game is rare, and it is no wonder he pointed to his exhaustion at the end of his very long season.
The South American trio of Luis Diaz (4,941 minutes), Alexis Mac Allister (4,561) and Darwin Nunez (4,001) all played 60 or more matches and had the added travel headaches to navigate.
1. Virgil van Dijk (64 games) – 5,395
2. Luis Diaz (67) – 4,941
3. Alexis Mac Allister (60) – 4,561
4. Darwin Nunez (67) – 4,001
5. Mohamed Salah (54) – 3,987
6. Cody Gakpo (66) – 3,942
7. Dominik Szoboszlai (58) – 3,841
8. Wataru Endo (56) – 3,743
9. Alisson (40) – 3,600
10. Harvey Elliott (62) – 3,423
What is also noticeable from the figures and the graph (above) is that Dominik Szoboszlai played 42 percent of his season minutes for Hungary.
He’s an ever-present for his country and that is something Arne Slot and his staff will need to consider as they seek to avoid another drop-off in output in the second half of the campaign.
Finally, if we take a look at the bigger picture, only 12 players in world football played more than Van Dijk last season in all competitions for club and country, and two of them were goalkeepers.
If you were to eliminate club cup competitions from that equation, the Dutchman has played the fourth-most minutes of any outfield player in the world.
And just to highlight his busy year even further, he played 1,394 minutes more than Nunez, who ranked fourth in Liverpool’s top 10 for minutes played!
Club – Top 5
1. Van Dijk – 4,072
2. Diaz – 3,615
3. Mac Allister – 3,501
4. Joe Gomez – 3,113
5. Salah – 3,132
Country – Top 5
1. Diaz – 1,326
2. Van Dijk – 1,323
3. Szoboszlai – 1,137
4. Mac Allister – 1,060
5. Endo – 985
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