A muscle injury for which not many explanations were given has kept Jesús Navas out of the game from early November to mid-February. Three and a half months that have been very long for both the World Champion and Sevilla and that, moreover, has the consequence that this is going to be the season in which Navas plays fewer minutes since his return to Nervión in 2017.
At this point in the course, Jesús Navas adds 1,750 minutes that despite his injury, they place him among the eleven footballers most used by Lopetegui, occupying the last place. With nine games to go, if Navas completed all the games he could reach 2,560 minutes, a figure lower than those achieved in his four previous seasons. In fact, in 2019/20, he was the most used footballer with 4,149 minutes in total.
To find a season with a lower minute load, you have to go back to Navas’s last year as a Manchester City footballer. It was 2016/17 and that of Los Palacios stayed in 1,796 minutes, since despite playing 36 games, less than half were starting in the starting eleven.