By David Owen
December 18 – Robin van Persie has overhauled Wayne Rooney, his Manchester United team-mate, as the name on the top-selling Barclays Premier League player jersey in North America.
The Dutch striker heads a list of the top ten best-selling jerseys in the present season released by Sporting iD, which makes their names, numbers and sleeve badges.
The rankings are based on sales of official player names and numbers to all North American retailers during the 2012-13 season.
A similar list for the full 2011-12 campaign had Rooney leading the way, with Van Persie second.
The latest list includes four Manchester United players in all, three from Chelsea and one each from Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Arsenal.
This means, perhaps surprisingly, that no player from Manchester City, the reigning Premier League champions, is included.
One North American – Clint Dempsey of Spurs – makes it onto the list in sixth spot, while Mexico’s Chicharito Hernández, yet another United striker, is eighth – down from third in 2011-12.
The fourth United inclusion is Shinji Kagawa of Japan in ninth spot, while Chelsea’s Fernando Torres (pictured above), Eden Hazard and Frank Lampard are third, fourth and fifth respectively.
No defenders make it into the top ten; however, insideworldfootball understands that John Terry and David Luiz, both of Chelsea, are the highest-ranked defensive players.
The full list (with 2011-12 positions in brackets) is as follows:
1 (2) Van Persie, 2 (1) Rooney, 3 (5) Torres, 4 (-) Hazard, 5 (6) Lampard, 6 (-) Dempsey 7 (7) Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), 8 (3) Chicharito, 9 (-) Kagawa, 10 (10) Jack Wilshere (Arsenal)
Four of the top ten players are English.
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