The Premier League’s great journeymen
Craig Bellamy scored for seven Premier League clubs. Marcus Bent played for eight. Here is who has moved around the most since 1992.
Most footballers who make it to the Premier League only ever play for one club in it. Of the 5,221 players in our Premier League records since 1992, 3,531 (about two in three) only ever appeared for one club. Another 1,057 played for two. After that the numbers fall away quickly: 389 played for three clubs, 168 for four, 51 for five and 19 for six.
Only six men have played league football for seven or more Premier League clubs. They are the subject of this article, along with the players who did the rarer thing and scored for most of the clubs they played for.
| Player | Clubs | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marcus Bent | 8 | 214 | 40 |
| Peter Crouch | 7 | 468 | 106 |
| Andy Cole | 7 | 415 | 187 |
| Wayne Routledge | 7 | 297 | 17 |
| Craig Bellamy | 7 | 294 | 80 |
| Tal Ben Haim | 7 | 148 | 1 |
Marcus Bent: eight clubs, one record
Marcus Bent holds the record outright. He played Premier League football for Crystal Palace, Blackburn Rovers, Ipswich Town, Leicester City, Everton, Charlton Athletic, Wigan Athletic and Wolverhampton Wanderers. His 214 appearances were spread so thinly that his longest stay, at Everton, was 55 games. His shortest, at Wolves, was three.
He scored for six of the eight, which shows the kind of player he was. He was rarely a headline signing, but he was a forward that clubs fighting to stay up kept coming back to. He got nine league goals at Ipswich and nine at Leicester, seven at Everton and seven at Wigan, and five at Palace. Each club got something from him, and nobody kept him for long.
Craig Bellamy: seven clubs, a goal at every one
Craig Bellamy is the more remarkable case. He also played for seven Premier League clubs: Coventry City, Newcastle United, Blackburn Rovers, Liverpool, West Ham United, Manchester City and Cardiff City. He scored for all seven. Nobody else in the Premier League era has scored for as many different clubs.
| Club | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|
| Newcastle United | 93 | 28 |
| Liverpool | 54 | 13 |
| Blackburn Rovers | 27 | 13 |
| Manchester City | 40 | 12 |
| West Ham United | 24 | 7 |
| Coventry City | 34 | 6 |
| Cardiff City | 22 | 1 |
Unlike most journeymen, Bellamy was not a squad player passed around the lower half of the table. He played in a Champions League side at Liverpool and in Manchester City’s first big-money team, and his best goals-per-game rate came at Blackburn, with 13 in 27. His last club, Cardiff, gave him one goal in 22 games, and that one goal is what completes the record.
The six-club scorers
Ten players have scored for six different Premier League clubs. They are a mix of elite strikers and the kind of forward who always seemed to be someone’s January signing.
| Player | PL goals | Clubs scored for |
|---|---|---|
| Andy Cole | 187 | Newcastle, Man Utd, Blackburn, Fulham, Man City, Portsmouth |
| Les Ferdinand | 149 | QPR, Newcastle, Spurs, West Ham, Leicester, Bolton |
| Robbie Keane | 126 | Coventry, Leeds, Spurs, Liverpool, West Ham, Aston Villa |
| Nicolas Anelka | 125 | Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City, Bolton, Chelsea, West Brom |
| Peter Crouch | 106 | Aston Villa, Southampton, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Spurs, Stoke |
| Darren Bent | 106 | Ipswich, Charlton, Spurs, Sunderland, Aston Villa, Fulham |
| James Milner | 56 | Leeds, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Man City, Liverpool, Brighton |
| Nick Barmby | 54 | Spurs, Middlesbrough, Everton, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull |
| Marcus Bent | 40 | Palace, Ipswich, Leicester, Everton, Charlton, Wigan |
| Andros Townsend | 26 | Spurs, Newcastle, Palace, Everton, Luton, QPR |
Andy Cole stands out. He is the fifth-highest scorer in Premier League history with 187 goals, and he got them across six clubs, plus seven scoreless games for a seventh, Sunderland. Most players with a goal record like his spent their careers at one or two big clubs. Cole won the title at Manchester United, where he scored 93 of his goals, and also scored 43 in 58 games for Newcastle before that, 27 for Blackburn, 12 for Fulham, 9 for Manchester City and 3 for Portsmouth.
Nicolas Anelka’s list is the most glamorous: Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea, plus Bolton and West Brom. He scored at least 20 Premier League goals for four of those clubs.
James Milner: the record-breaking journeyman
James Milner shows that moving around and lasting a long time can go together. He has made more Premier League appearances than anyone, 658 in our records. Those games came for six clubs: Leeds United (48), Newcastle United (94), Aston Villa (100), Manchester City (147), Liverpool (230) and Brighton (39). He scored for all six. That is a different kind of journeyman to Marcus Bent, the kind who stays for years at each stop and leaves for a bigger role rather than a shorter contract.
Why journeymen make good trivia
Players like these are the reason two-club questions are hard. Ask most fans for a player who played for both Liverpool and West Ham, or Blackburn and Manchester City, and the famous names come to mind slowly. Then someone remembers Craig Bellamy, who covers both pairs. Our Football Tic-Tac-Toe grid is built on exactly that overlap. Every square needs a player who fits a row and a column, and journeymen are often the answer that unlocks a square nobody else can.
They are also the hardest players in Career Path, where the clubs are revealed one at a time. A player whose career reads Crystal Palace, Ipswich, Leicester, Everton is a long way from obvious until the fourth or fifth club, and by then the guesses have usually run out.
Sources and method
Appearances and goals are league matches only, from Transfermarkt’s season-by-season player records, as used by the games on this site. Figures were checked on 2 November 2026 against data collected on 24 October 2026, early in the 2026/27 season, so totals for players still active will have moved on since.
A player counts as having played for a club if he made at least one Premier League appearance for it. Loan spells count, because they are league appearances like any other.