GREENWOOD'S SURPRISE 2019/20 RANKING

Mason Greenwood was second only to Harry Maguire in the Manchester United appearances list for 2019/20.

Although still only 18, the homegrown youngster played in 49 games for the Reds in his first full season, which is remarkable in the context of other players of his age. It was more than any of his colleagues except for the captain, who made 55 starts and spent every minute of the Premier League season on the pitch.

Greenwood was used regularly in the cup competitions and, if he had been introduced off the bench in the second-leg win over LASK earlier this month, he would have hit the half-century for outings over the course of the campaign.

Mason did come off the bench 19 times in the Premier League, with Moise Kean of Everton doing this the most with 23 substitute appearances to his name, but the England Under-21 forward became a regular starter for United as 2019/20 wore on and emerged after the restart as a key figure for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Fred, who started the Europa League semi-final with Sevilla and performed well in midfield, was joint-third in terms of appearances in all competitions, along with top scorer Anthony Martial.

MOST APPEARANCES

55: Harry Maguire
49: Mason Greenwood
48: Fred, Anthony Martial
47: Victor Lindelof

If we focus on starts, obviously Maguire comes out on top again. His regular central defensive partner Victor Lindelof is second on the list, which is dominated by defensive-minded players - even if Anthony Martial again features.

It is worth noting that two of the top three players picked in the XI the most often by the boss were signings from the previous summer, indicating the impact they have made and the esteem in which they are held.

MOST STARTS

55: Harry Maguire
46: Victor Lindelof
45: Aaron Wan-Bissaka
43: David De Gea
41: Anthony Martial

If we look at the most minutes played over the course of 2019/20, the results are very similar with the same top four in identical order. However, Brazilian midfielder Fred is the fifth highest in this field which illustrates his involvement again and shows that he can be well pleased with his progress in his second term with the Reds.

MOST MINUTES

4,960: Harry Maguire
4,107: Victor Lindelof
4,073: Aaron Wan-Bissaka
3,870: David De Gea
3,576: Fred

So, all things considered, if we tried picking a team which was based on who was on the field the most for United in all competitions, it would be:

David De Gea; Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Victor Lindelof, Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw; Nemanja Matic, Fred; Daniel James, Mason Greenwood, Marcus Rashford; Anthony Martial.

Mason may not really have been used as a no.10 but we have used our usual 4-2-3-1 formation and he had the ninth-most minutes of the squad and was therefore ahead of Scott McTominay, Andreas Pereira, Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard, January arrival Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba.