Manchester United are the biggest club in England when it comes to crowds - both now and historically - and the joint biggest along with Liverpool when it comes to ‘ star players ’ in their line-ups , all-time . Crowds and stars have been considered as part of a Sportsmail study to explore which English clubs are the ‘ biggest ’ ; 58 different teams of the current 92 in the top four divisions have been included in the study , having played in England ’ s top division for at least a season . Two different measurements were used for crowds - the average gates for each club this season , plus the biggest gate each club has ever had at any point . The aim of this was to gauge not just one season but reflect former ‘ greatness ’ for clubs now enduring leaner times but who were authentic giants at some point . Manchester United , averaging over 75,000 fans every game at Old Trafford , top the crowds list . This is what Maine Road looked like in 1934 , the year Manchester City recorded a record attendance of 84,569 . Arsenal 's Emirates Stadium sees them second in attendances for this season , and fourth overall on crowds . CLICK HERE to see Sportsmail 's definitive list of the BIGGEST clubs in England . United ’ s current average attendances of more than 75,000 leaves them way ahead of the field , with Arsenal in second place just below 60,000 , then Newcastle ( nearly 51,000 ) , Manchester City ( 45,400 ) , Liverpool ( 44,700 ) , with Chelsea , Sunderland , Everton , Tottenham and West Ham filling out the top 10 . All 59 clubs in the study have been ranked on current attendances , and separately on their biggest historic gates . An aggregate of those two ranks gives the overall crowd ranking topped by United , with City in second place , then Chelsea , Arsenal and Sunderland . City have the highest single attendance for a home club match in English football - almost 85,000 were at Maine Road for the game in question , an FA Cup tie against Stoke in 1934 . United are the club with the next biggest home record , just over 83,000 for a league match with Arsenal in 1948 . We ranked all clubs on the size of their average gates during this season to reflect contemporary pull . Then we ranked each club by the size of their biggest historic gates . Their overall crowd rank is an aggregate of current pull and also potential based on past highs . Incidentally , this was also played at Maine Road , which United were using at that time because Old Trafford had been so damaged in the blitz . Eight other clubs also have record home attendances of more than 70,000 : Chelsea , Everton , Aston Villa , Sunderland , Tottenham , Charlton , Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday and these all-time highs are reflective of these clubs having massive paying support in different eras . AFC Wimbledon 's support may be loud and loyal , but they are bottom of our list in terms of crowds . With Kingsmeadow one of the Football League 's smallest grounds , AFC Wimbledon rank low on attendance . We counted the number of players from each club who have played for England , all-time , ranking the clubs by total . This reflects historic ‘ bigness ’ . We then ranked the clubs by the number of players provided to the 2014 World Cup — a measure of modern ‘ bigness ’ . The overall ranking is an aggregate of these two . To measure the amount of ‘ star ’ players at each club , both all-time and more recently , our study used two objective criteria - the number of players capped by England at each club , ever , and the number of players called up by their countries for the most recent World Cup . The notion of ‘ stars ’ will always be subjective . That is a given . But using proxies of England players over time and World Cup players last summer allowed hard data to compare all the clubs on a like-for-like basis . The clubs have been ranked on each criteria with an aggregate ranking to determine the ‘ biggest ’ clubs in terms of all-time stars . Using this method , United and Liverpool are joint top . Liverpool have provided the third most England players , all-time ( 67 ) , behind Aston Villa in first place ( 73 ) and Tottenham ( 71 ) . They also provided the joint third-most players of all the clubs in the English league to the World Cup ( 10 ) . Manchester United had the most players of any English team at the World Cup , including Wayne Rooney . Liverpool were third for number of players at the World Cup , including Luis Suarez and Steven Gerrard . Fabian Delph is the only Aston Villa in the current England squad , but they top the historical list . United provided the most players to the World Cup of all English clubs ( 14 ) , followed by Chelsea ( 12 ) then Liverpool , Arsenal and City on 10 each . United have provided the fifth most England players , or 65 to date . Thus both Liverpool and United ’ s aggregate ‘ star player ’ rankings are the same . Our ‘ star player ’ index has Arsenal and Tottenham in joint third , followed by Everton , City and Chelsea in joint fifth , then Aston Villa in eighth , Newcastle in ninth , with West Brom and Southampton joint 10th . The full rankings are in the tables below .
Manchester City top the all - time top attendance list from a game in 1934 . But Manchester United 's average home attendance makes them top our ' elite ' category . Liverpool and United are joint first for most ' star players ' Tottenham and Arsenal players in both league and World Cup appearances . Sportsmail 's HOW BIG IS YOUR CLUB ? Study finally settles great ground .