The Five French Stars Who Have The Most Appearances In The Premier League

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3 years ago

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Tags: Arsenal, aston villa, Chelsea, Everton, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Sheffield United, Southampton, spurs, West Ham, wolves

Today, we continue our series of posts looking at who has made the most appearances in the Premier League for their respective countries.

In this article, we will be profiling the top five Frenchman who have played the most games. There are certainly a fair few players who have travelled across the Channel to ply their trade in English football over the years.

A lot of them ended up at Arsenal, where manager Arsene Wenger managed to pick up the cream of the crop with his excellent scouting network.

So who makes the top five? Press the next page as we go through the Frenchman who are the highest appearance makers of the Premier League era.

5) William Gallas (Chelsea, Arsenal And Tottenham) – 321 appearances

The French centre-back played for three of London’s biggest clubs which is a very rare feat indeed. However, his most successful time was at Chelsea.

Gallas won the title twice with the Blues, as well as a League Cup. After asking to leave Stamford Bridge, though, he was involved in a swap deal with Arsenal’s Ashley Cole, leading to his spell at the Gunners. He spent four years at the Emirates before joining Spurs on a free transfer.

4) Gael Clichy (Arsenal and Manchester City) – 325 appearances

The left-back spent the best part of 14 years in English football which makes it unsurprising that he is so high up on this list of appearance makers.

At Arsenal, he played a bit-part role in the ‘Invincibles’ team of 2003/04 before establishing himself after Ashley Cole’s departure for Chelsea. He then made the £7m switch to City in 2011 where he picked up two more Premier League titles.

3) Steed Malbranque (Fulham, Tottenham and Sunderland) – 336 appearances

The winger was a regular starter throughout his ten years in England. He helped keep Fulham in the Premier League before he spent two seasons at Spurs, where he lifted the League Cup.

By the time he arrived at Sunderland in 2008, though, the goals had begun to dry up, and after two seasons in the North East, he returned to France.

2) Nicolas Anelka (Arsenal, Liverpool, Bolton, Chelsea and West Brom) – 364 appearances

Very much the journeyman, the temperamental striker burst onto the scene at Arsenal before quickly leaving for Real Madrid. He didn’t stay away from England for very long, though, with a loan spell at Liverpool followed by a three-year stint at Manchester City.

There was a brief sojourn to Turkey before he came back to the Premier League once again, where he found a home at Chelsea. He managed to reach double figures for goals in three of his five seasons at Stamford Bridge, winning the title in 2010. He subsequently left the country in 2012, only to return for one final spell with West Brom.

1) Sylvain Distin (Newcastle, Manchester City, Portsmouth, Everton and Bournemouth) – 469 appearances

The centre-back had an initial loan spell at Newcastle after which City snapped him up from PSG in 2002. He spent 5 years at the club before he was offloaded to Portsmouth.

Following two excellent seasons at Pompey, Distin moved back North to Everton where he established himself as a commanding centre-half. The Frenchman had six years on Merseyside and one final season with Bournemouth before he hung up his boots in 2016.