Are Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea the bigger club?

Manchester United and Liverpool, with 38 English league titles between them, might reasonably point to last Sunday’s match and argue it was a contest between England’s two biggest teams.

Certainly over the years they have enjoyed serial trophy successes, global adulation, showcased generations of stars and both have rich, stirring histories in more than one sense. Then again, supporters of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City might reasonably scoff at that, arguing that at least their teams are likely to play at the highest European level next season. They’re not scrapping around merely to squeeze into the top four.

And then there are fans from all points on the map who will, with different levels of justification, swear their club is up there with all those names above, or getting closer by the day, or merely enduring a painful blip, perhaps of decades, but they will be back.

Yes, that’s you, fans of Leeds. And Tottenham. And Everton. And Newcastle, Wolves, Aston Villa, Sunderland, both Sheffield clubs, West Ham, Blackburn... and on and on and on.

So who, objectively, are the biggest clubs in England?

That’s the question Sportsmail answers today. We’ve used no opinion, just hard evidence to determine the answers.

The outcome might surprise you. It will certainly provoke debate.

The starting point, to cast the net of candidates as widely as possible, was to narrow the field to ‘big’ clubs who are currently among the 92 in the Premier League or Football League and who have played in England’s top division for at least one season, ever.

That gives us 59 contenders, from all those named above down to clubs who once spent just a few seasons, perhaps only one, at the highest level a long time ago. We’ve ranked the top 50, with Brentford, Carlisle, Northampton, Wimbledon, Oxford, Swindon, Leyton Orient, Luton and Oldham just missing out.

We ranked each of those 59 teams in six categories to assess how ‘big’ they are in each of them. We’ve considered trophies, all-time league performance by average finish since 1888-89, crowds (for this season, and historically), calibre of players over time (counting England internationals, and World Cup stars), modern global popularity (using social media followings) and money, measuring income.

‘Big’ clubs, by definition, win things, perform consistently at a high level over a long time, attract big gates to see star names, are widely followed within these shores and beyond, and have money, to buy and pay the best players.

(dailymail.co.uk)