No offence but we are obviously the biggest club in london. I would say it goes: 1, Us 2, Chelsea 3 = West ham and spurs
West Ham are bigger than Spurs IMO. Considering their lack of success they are well supported to be fair to them
what is it that constitutes a BIG club then DL?? Is it recent history? It is total trophies won? is it money in your bank account? How can you be stupid enough to compare a championship side with Spurs?
I would never say success, that's where I disagree with the gloryhunting United and Pool types. There are some big clubs that have been relative unsuccessful, Newcastle one of them. Fanbase - How well supported the club is domestically (to a lesser extent globally) Mentality/Standards - i.e Chelsea/Liverpool/United. Coming anywhere but 1st is failure. Spurs, coming 4th is seen as success. No DVD's of meaningless 1-0 wins over rivals, shows inferiority complex. Attendances - Numbers actively going to games over a long period of time i.e no disrespect to Fulham but their attendances have increased fivefold over the last 15 years. Perception of other clubs/fans - For instance at most clubs. Arsenal, Chelsea, United and Liverpool are/were the highest price band, which emphasizes the demand for those games. How much money a club makes - Revenue - Arsenal £249m. Chelsea - £235m. Spurs £181m Ambition - Future club objectives. What a club can realistically offer a player. The reason Sol left Spurs for Arsenal Recent performance on the pitch - A huge factor and linked to CL Football. Liverpool IMO cannot rightly claim to be a bigger club than Arsenal, Chelsea or even City right now. Past performance on the pitch - How well a team has done (Yes this is for you Liverpool fans ). The achievements of the past should not be ignored. It shouldn't make or break you i.e Liverpool but it is important. Liverpool fans call it "history" Head to Head performance in games - A reason why Sunderland can not say they are bigger than Newcastle. IMO. i.e the 5-1 last season and Sunderland's poor record against them. Same for Fulham v Chelsea IMO There are many factors, which I don't have time to go into now
Well if they beat us in the Cup, 20 years of history will be wiped out. The power shift will have happened. Football started in 2010
If the spuds actually focussed on their own team, and their weaknesses, then maybe they would be better than us 2, but this obsession is costing them dearly. The whole club should grow up.
every player and fan discusses oppo teams and players....nothing wrong with that. ill be damned if they interview a player from my team and he comes across negative and pessimistic...and im sure most of you would be too. plus it is easy to take the little bit out of the articles that suit your agenda.
Indeed but you only focus on 2 teams,Arsenal & Chelsea.The league has 17 other teams which you never seem to bother with. I can heard us now singing tomorrow "Bale Bale what's the score Bale what's the score"
Might as well add my own comments to these: Fanbase: No-one can deny this plays a part in determining a club's size. Mentality/Standards: Surely this needs to be restricted according to the club's size? I am sure Wigan don't view not winning the PL as a failure. Blackburn are a decent sized club and would think the same. Tottenham (seeing as how this is what the Chelsea board are banging on about) are a big club - they're not Man Utd size - no-one's claiming that. Man Utd expect to win the league every year - Tottenham aren't as big and don't expect to. Simples. Attendances - restricted by stadium. Perception - don't think anyone would disagree - affected by Sky as much as anything. Revenue - affected by stadium/sugar daddy. That's why Chelsea are so massively far ahead of Spurs despite the similar stadium size. Ambition - your example is about something which happened (in footballing terms) a while back. You'd probably claim Arsenal are a big club yet Nasri/Fabregas etc all jumped ship. Recent performance - depending on what time span you're talking about, this plays little to no part. 1 good season for, I dunno, Bolton isn't gonna turn them into a big club. You've gotta be looking at longer term - 3 seasons at least. Past performance - this affects it just as much as recent performance and is why Liverpool still bang on about their history all the time. Head to head - eh, it's all well and good beating Tottenham but if you lose to QPR the next week then you've not really gained anything have you?