The strength of the Manchester City fanbase and their connection to the club has always been on display

Manchester City fans are among the best in England. We knew that already, but now a study has backed it up. The Football Fandom Index, compiled by researchers at kwiff, ranked all 20 Premier League clubs, plus the 24 teams currently in the Championship, based on the passion and dedication of their supporters.

The researchers examined the connection between clubs and their local communities, looking at everything from matchday traditions, stadium sellouts to statues, monuments, street names and club-affiliated venues.

Manchester City scored particularly well for their presence across Manchester, with ten roads named after club legends, alongside four statues and six murals celebrating our great club.

A total of eight criteria were used, with each club receiving an overall score out of 100. Manchester City ended up with 47/100, which saw us finish sixth, narrowly below the likes of Everton, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and plucky relegation-battlers Manchester United. Newcastle and Leeds completed the top eight, while the highest-ranked club outside the Premier League was Derby County in ninth.

At the other end of the table, Brentford were the lowest-ranked Premier League fanbase, with a score of just 14. Crystal Palace and Hull City also found themselves below many Championship clubs. More notably, Tottenham and Aston Villa only registered scores of 24 and 19 respectively. Those figures would suggest City’s fanbase is stronger than Spurs and Villa’s combined!

So much for the tired old jokes about Manchester City having no fans. That argument has never held any weight despite the seemingly endless supply of ’empty seats’ jokes that have been common place since 2008.

If there was any further proof of how strong the connection between the Manchester City fans and their club, it has been on full display since the ‘115’ verdict landed. City fans have embraced being the ‘villain’ of the piece from that day onwards. When Enzo Maresca’s side dispatched Liverpool 3-0 at Anfield in October, in the first match since the verdict was announced, City fans showed that their commitment to the club will never waver. Inflatable bananas, fans in fancy dress and a never ending selection of songs rang out at Anfield.

The result at Anfield matched the City fans defiance in a day that will live long in the memory of everyone associated with Manchester City. Overall, if you wanted proof of how connected the City community is to their club, it arrived on that day at Anfield.

Check out the rankings in full below.

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