By Paul Nicholson
November 26 – Swansea topped the stadium capacity chart on the first weekend back after the international break, with Chelsea coming a close second and Spurs third.
Swansea actually reported another stadium attendance of more than their official capacity. But it is the continued ability of Chelsea to fill over 99% of seats at Stamford Bridge – twice the size of Swansea’s Liberty Stadium – while having a poor run of results that is worth comment.
Chelsea reckon they could sell more and have submitted plans for a stadium redevelopment. Spurs, who had 316 unfilled seats, are already midway through a redevelopment of White Hart Lane.
This was the first week of the Premier League season – round 13 – that every home team filled over 90% of their stadium capacities. Of a total of 354,030 tickets on sale for the weekend, just 13,138 seats were unfilled.
Notable sales progress was seen at Newcastle United who for the first time this season sold more than 95% of St James’s Park, though fans weren’t happy at the loss to Leicester City, giving more applause to Leicester’s record equaling striker Jamie Vardy who scored for the tenth game on the trot, than to their own team.
West Brom and Southampton were at the bottom of the week’s table in terms of most seats unfilled. This may be a result of seat kills due to security and the failure of visiting clubs to sell their full ticket allocations – often a problem for the south coast side whose ground is one of the more difficult and longer travel journeys for visitors.
The two clubs that have struggled the most tis season in the attendance chart – Aston Villa and Sunderland – were both away last weekend but will both be at home next.
Both clubs have new managers and in Sunderland’s case they look to be making progress after a good away win at Crystal Palace last round. They will be disappointed if this does not have a knock-on effect for attendance at the 49,000 capacity Stadium of Light, the fourth largest ground in the Premier League.
Round 13, Premier League stadium attendance
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