Sunderland's marathon 52-game season is over and now is the time to reflect on the campaign as a whole. In addition to the 46 Championship games, the Black Cats played three FA Cup matches, two play-off games, and one Carabao Cup tie.
Tony Mowbray and his predecessor Alex Neil utilised 36 players over the course of the season, with some playing thousands of minutes and some making only blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos. Homegrown goalkeeper Anthony Patterson was the club's only ever-present in the Championship, playing every minute of every match, and it is no surprise that he spent more time on the pitch than any other Sunderland man with a final total of 4,500 minutes in all competitions.
He fell just 180 minutes short of the maximum possible, as he was rested for both the Carabao Cup defeat at Sheffield Wednesday in August and the FA Cup third round win at Shrewsbury Town in January. Winger Jack Clarke was second on the list with his 4,179 minutes in all competitions, and midfielder Dan Neil also scraped into the 4,000 club having played 4,001 minutes.
