The USA and UK share a lot of things: friendship, mutual trust, and the English language are to name but some. Yet, American footballers plying their trade in the Premier League are few and far between. Every so often, however, one incredibly talented Stars and Stripes’ representative slips through the net.

Brad Friedel

Who else but the record-breaker Brad Friedel? The goalkeeper retired at the age of 44 at the end of the 2014/15 season, having broken the record for the number of consecutive appearances with 310 straight games from 2004 to 2012.

With 557 career appearances under his belt, Friedel is both Aston Villa’s and Tottenham’s oldest ever player and also donned both the Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers shirt in the Premier League.

Clint Dempsey

A Fulham hero, Clint Dempsey registered 50 goals in 185 appearances for the London club before moving to Spurs in 2012 where he scored seven in 29 appearances.

Dempsey was the first American to score a hat-trick in the Premier League, the first to reach 50 goals, was voted Fulham’s Player of the Year in successive seasons and became the first American to ever play in a major European final when he came off the bench for Fulham against Atletico Madrid in the 2010 Europa League Final.

Brian McBride

Before Clint Dempsey’s arrival at Fulham, the club had already had an American connection with striker Brian McBride. Over a period of four seasons, McBride notched 33 goals in 140 appearances, but endeared himself to the Fulham faithful with his high work rate which resulted in him being awarded the captaincy in 2007 and the club’s Player of the Year award the same season after playing an integral role in Fulham’s top-tier survival.

Tim Howard

The second goalkeeper in the list, Tim Howard is a household name in football. After 45 appearances for Manchester United, the New Jersey-born man-mountain joined Everton where, in the space of a decade, he made over 350 appearances for the Merseyside club with his brick-wall ability of over 100 clean sheets making him a great bet with free soccer picks.

Howard won both the FA Cup and League Cup with United and is also the most-capped American international goalkeeper ever with 121.

Carlos Bocanegra

Yet another American to have played for Fulham, Carlos Bocanegra wore the Cottagers’ shirt 116 times, scoring eight goals in the process. Left-back Bocanegra captained Fulham for a brief stint in 2007 and went on to make 110 appearances for his nation.

His aggressive tendencies did, however, mean he wasn’t short of a yellow card or two, making him a risky bet to back for a clean sheet.