December 16 – Pre-Christmas Premier League attendances are holding up well with eight of last weekend’s home clubs reporting over 90% capacity and three of them over 99%. But of 20,795 unfilled seats in round 16 out of a total of 361,222 available, 14,514 were at Aston Villa and Sunderland.
West ham continue to top the table whenever they play at home, indicating that they should have no trouble filling their new stadium when they move across to the 50,000+ Olympic Stadium next season.
Leicester are capitalizing on their remarkable run of form at the top of the Premier League – this time last year they were in bottom position. While Norwich, who are in the bottom three, show there is still an appetite for Premier League football in East Anglia.
The slump at Aston Villa will be most worrying for the owners who have the club up for sale. Generally regarded as one of England’s big clubs whatever their league position, the attendance figures are not supporting this assumption. Last week they slumped to filling 77% of their capacity despite managing a credible draw the previous week against higher flying Southampton.
Sunderland continue to struggle to fill the Stadium of Light but were only just under the 90% capacity figure.
So far this season the Premier League clubs have had a total of more than 6 million seats available for matches, of which just 245,866 have been unfilled.
The run into Christmas in the past has seen a drop in attendances as fans conserve cash for the festive season. But this season is bucking that trend. England’s Christmas fixtures are generally all sell outs.
The Insideworldfootball stats are taken from the club’s reported attendance figure. They do not take account of tickets that might have been sold but the ticket holder did not turn up. Also, for some games stadiums will have slightly reduced capacities due to media and safety requirements.
Round 16 Premier League attendance ranking
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