The Premier League's great journeymen

Bent's 215 appearances across eight clubs average 27 each, well under a season's worth at every stop. He was a willing, mobile centre-forward who could lead a line, which made him useful to a club that needed one for a season, and replaceable when it found someone better.

Tal Ben Haim's numbers are more extreme. He played for seven Premier League clubs, Bolton, Chelsea, Manchester City, Sunderland, Portsmouth, West Ham and QPR, in only 148 games, an average of 21 per club. Several of those moves were loans. It is the profile of a defender who was good enough to be signed by big clubs and never quite good enough to stay at one.

David Thompson (six clubs, 167 games) and Stan Collymore (six, 163) are the other short-stay careers in the twenty. Collymore's is the most famous of the two: a British record transfer to Liverpool in 1995, then Aston Villa, Leicester and Bradford in quick succession before he retired at 30.

Peter Crouch's seven clubs were Aston Villa, Southampton, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Tottenham, Stoke and Burnley, and he made 468 appearances across them, 67 per club. Crouch moved because he kept being bought. A tall, technically gifted centre-forward was a specific tool, and clubs wanting that tool went to the one player who fitted it.

Andy Cole's seven were Newcastle, Manchester United, Blackburn, Fulham, Manchester City, Portsmouth and Sunderland, over 414 games. His move from Newcastle to United in 1995 broke the British transfer record. His later moves were the natural decline of a striker in his thirties, a season or two at each club as the goals slowed.

Wayne Routledge, also on seven, is the reverse of the usual pattern. He left Crystal Palace for Tottenham at 20, then moved through Aston Villa, Fulham, Newcastle and QPR in a few restless years, mostly on short spells and loans. Then he signed for Swansea in 2011 and stayed for the whole of the club's Premier League era, seven seasons. Six Premier League clubs before he turned 27, and one after. The table counts both halves the same, which is why the appearances column matters as much as the number of clubs: his 297 games are spread very unevenly across his seven.

Craig Bellamy's seven, from 294 games, include Liverpool twice: he left in 2007 and came back in 2011. Newcastle, Blackburn, West Ham, Manchester City and Cardiff complete his list, and Coventry, where he started, makes seven. Robbie Keane, on six, has a similar story: he joined Liverpool from Tottenham in 2008 and went back to Tottenham six months later.

James Milner's 658 games across six clubs, from Leeds at 16 to Brighton in his late thirties, average 110 per club, more than anyone else on the table by a distance. His moves came at natural moments: a teenager leaving a club in financial trouble, a regular moving up, a veteran moving on. Every club he left would have kept him.

Nicolas Anelka's six, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City, Bolton, Chelsea and West Brom, read like a tour of the league's rich and ambitious clubs. He left Arsenal at 20 for Real Madrid and came back to England at 22. His 364 Premier League games produced more than a hundred goals and two titles, and his moves were never about failing to get a game.

Two Bents are on the list, and they are not related. Marcus holds the record with eight; Darren, a more prolific scorer, played for six: Ipswich, Charlton, Tottenham, Sunderland, Aston Villa and Fulham. Les Ferdinand's six, from QPR and Newcastle through Tottenham, West Ham and Leicester to Bolton, took him to the age of 38, and his 351 games make him one of the few strikers here whose moves were mostly upwards before they were downwards.

Scott Parker's 368 games for Charlton, Chelsea, Newcastle, West Ham, Tottenham and Fulham were a midfielder's career spent mostly in sides fighting for the middle of the table. He was voted the Football Writers' Footballer of the Year in 2011 while playing for a West Ham side that was relegated, which tells you something about how often good players end up at struggling clubs.

These are the players Career Path was built for. A career that runs through seven Premier League crests is a puzzle with seven clues, and each one narrows the field. Palace, then Blackburn and Ipswich will lead an experienced player to Marcus Bent. Bolton, Chelsea and Manchester City is Tal Ben Haim, a name that defeats almost everyone the first time they meet it.

The trap is the first club. Many of these players began somewhere small, and a timeline that starts at Coventry or Crystal Palace does not look like the career of an international striker until the third or fourth crest appears.