Who played the most minutes in the 2025/26 Premier League season

Jordan Pickford played the most minutes in the 2025/26 Premier League, and these are last season's numbers, not the season now under way. The Everton goalkeeper finished the campaign on 3,432 minutes from 38 appearances, a single minute ahead of Virgil van Dijk's 3,431. Four players finished above 3,420 minutes, the ceiling for someone who plays every minute of a 38-game season with no stoppage time counted, and that line is the best entry point into what this table actually measures.

Who played the most minutes in the 2025/26 Premier League

Here is the leaderboard as it stood at the end of last season:

Player	Club	Minutes	Appearances
Jordan Pickford	Everton	3,432	38
Virgil van Dijk	Liverpool	3,431	38
Bernd Leno	Fulham	3,429	38
James Garner	Everton	3,426	38
Đorđe Petrović	Bournemouth	3,420	38
Bart Verbruggen	Brighton	3,420	38
Adrien Truffert	Bournemouth	3,380	38
Nikola Milenković	Nott'm Forest	3,375	38
James Tarkowski	Everton	3,342	37
Caoimhín Kelleher	Brentford	3,341	37
Elliot Anderson	Nott'm Forest	3,334	38
Dean Henderson	Crystal Palace	3,330	37
David Raya Martín	Arsenal	3,330	37
Igor Thiago	Brentford	3,295	38
Morgan Rogers	Aston Villa	3,285	37

The top of this table is a photograph, not a ranking. Pickford and van Dijk were separated by one minute across an entire 38-game season, and Leno and Garner sat within six minutes of the lead. A single injury stoppage in a single added-time period reorders the whole top four. When the gaps are this small at this volume, the minutes table says less about who deserved to be most used and more about who went a whole season without being disrupted.

The depth of the list matters as much as the top. Dean Henderson and David Raya both finished on 3,330 minutes for clubs at opposite ends of the table, Crystal Palace in 15th and Arsenal in first. Dominik Szoboszlai logged 3,244 for a Liverpool side that finished fifth, and Enzo Fernández 3,134 for a Chelsea side that finished tenth. Chelsea and Manchester United each placed only one player in the top 25, which is what a deeper squad looks like in this data.

Why goalkeepers and centre-backs dominate the minutes table

Four of the top six names are goalkeepers: Pickford, Leno, Petrović and Verbruggen. That is not a coincidence. A goalkeeper who keeps his place and stays fit plays the full match, while outfield players are rotated, rested and substituted. The counterweight is van Dijk, whose 3,431 minutes made him the most-used outfield player in the league and put a Liverpool central defender one minute behind the winning goalkeeper.

Van Dijk's total stands out for another reason. He banked it in a Liverpool side that finished fifth with 60 points, while Arsenal won the title with 85. A defender being asked to carry that load in a season his club finished outside the top four is either a compliment to his reliability or a sign of how thin Liverpool's rotation really was.

Among the non-keepers, James Garner's 3,426 is the most interesting figure, because it came with 38 appearances for a club that finished 13th. The outfield players at the top of the list mostly worked for clubs outside the top four: Garner and Tarkowski at Everton, Truffert at Bournemouth, Milenković and Anderson at Nott'm Forest, and van Dijk at fifth-placed Liverpool. The players who bucked that pattern, Luke Shaw at Manchester United and Morgan Rogers at Aston Villa, logged 3,231 and 3,285 for clubs that finished third and fourth, and even they trailed the leaders by a wide margin.

The clubs that leaned on their iron men

The minutes table clusters by club, and no club clusters like Everton. Pickford, Garner, Tarkowski and Jake O'Brien all finished in the top 25, four players from a side that ended the season 13th with 49 points. Nott'm Forest placed three, Milenković, Anderson and Neco Williams, and finished 16th with 44 points. Brentford placed three as well, Kelleher, Igor Thiago and Michael Kayode, and finished ninth with 53 points.

That split is the strongest claim you can make from this data. Minutes played tells you more about a club's limitations than its quality. Forest's iron men carried the team to 16th; Brentford's carried it to ninth; Everton's carried it to 13th. None of those are places a club would have chosen, and all three got there partly because their best players were also their only reliable players.

The bottom of the table makes the point from the other direction. Burnley finished 19th with 22 points and still put Martin Dubravka 23rd on the list with 3,150 minutes. Wolves finished last with 20 points and placed nobody in the top 25. A team can be poor without overworking anyone, and a team can overwork everyone and still be poor. The champions put one player on the list, Raya at 3,330, and won the title by seven points over Manchester City. Title-winning sides do not need anyone to reach 3,400 because nobody needs to save them.

Why some totals pass the 3,420 mark

3,420 minutes is the number a player reaches by playing every minute of a 38-game season. Pickford, van Dijk, Leno and Garner all finished above it, and the reason is that Premier League minutes include stoppage time. A few added minutes per match across 38 games pushes the ceiling higher, which is how a goalkeeper ends a season with more minutes than a full 38-game schedule theoretically allows.

This is also why appearances and minutes never move in perfect step. Tarkowski played 37 games to Petrović's 38 but finished 78 minutes behind him, and Henderson played 37 games to Anderson's 38 yet finished four minutes behind. Appearances measure availability; minutes measure necessity. The players on this list had both, which is what it means to be the man a manager cannot leave out, and Pickford's 3,432 minutes were the most minutes in the 2025/26 Premier League, set by a goalkeeper who was simply never rested.

FAQ

Who played the most minutes in the 2025/26 Premier League?

Jordan Pickford, with 3,432 minutes in 38 appearances for Everton. Virgil van Dijk was second with 3,431, one minute behind.

Which outfield player played the most minutes last season?

Virgil van Dijk. His 3,431 minutes made him the most-used outfield player in the league, five minutes ahead of James Garner on 3,426 and the only defender anywhere near the top.

Why did Everton have so many players in the minutes top 25?

Four Everton players made last season's top 25, more than any other club. High minutes totals for a 13th-placed side usually reflect a thin squad that cannot rotate, which fits how Everton's season played out.

Is 3,420 minutes the most a player can play?

No. 3,420 is the total for playing every minute of a 38-game season before stoppage time is included. Four players in 2025/26 finished above it because added time is counted in minutes played.

Key takeaways

• Jordan Pickford played 3,432 minutes in the 2025/26 Premier League, the most of any player and one minute more than Virgil van Dijk.
• Van Dijk was the most-used outfield player in the league with 3,431 minutes.
• Everton placed four players in the top 25, more than any club, and still finished 13th.
• Goalkeepers took four of the top six spots, led by Pickford, Leno, Petrović and Verbruggen.
• Pickford, van Dijk, Leno and Garner all exceeded 3,420 minutes, the theoretical full-season total, because stoppage time counts.