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LONDON. — Ask most English football fans if theirs is a “big” club and they will tell you with conviction: of course. “Giants” from the North West to the North East, from Yorkshire to the Midlands to London and across the South will point to historic titles, cup glories, bumper crowds or modern TV riches and insist: “We are a huge 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.

Fans of Liverpool and Manchester United will argue that their clubs are the top two in the land

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.

Manchester United come out top by some distance. Nobody beats United’s pulling power in terms of attendance, considering both contemporary and historic seasons, and no club is as globally popular as them, or as rich in terms of revenue.

It is who comes second that might cause most debate. Despite their incredible trophy record, Liverpool are pipped to second place by Arsenal, the London club edging them out because of their huge crowds, global appeal and income.

Chelsea in fourth place are catching Liverpool. Manchester City are fifth, then Everton, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Sunderland round out the top 10, in that order.

West Brom in 11th are ahead of West Ham, famously never winners of the English title but also famously providers of three key players for England’s greatest triumph, the 1966 World Cup win featuring Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters.

Generations of Hammers fans will have their club fixed in their minds as bone fide giants partly because of the richness of that Sixties summer. Yet they have as much major silverware in their 120-year history as Bolton: four cups, and the last one was 35 years ago.

Southampton, in 15th place, and Stoke, in 16th, are the other current English Premier League teams in the top 20 biggest clubs. Nine of the top 20 clubs ranked by trophies alone play outside the Premier League. One of those, Portsmouth, are in League Two, and another two, Sheffield United and Preston, are in League One.

Six of the biggest 20 clubs — Wolves, Leeds, Blackburn, Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton and Nottingham Forest — play outside the top division. It may surprise many that Wolves are tied with Leeds but their nine major trophies to Leeds’ seven gives them the edge.

The six English Premier League clubs outside the top 20 could all be argued to be punching above their weight to be there.

They are Leicester (21st), Burnley (26th), Crystal Palace (30th), QPR (31st), Hull (32nd) and Swansea (34th). Yet there are clubs vying for promotion like Derby (22nd overall), Norwich (23rd) and Middlesbrough (29th) who would inevitably leap up the rankings by joining the Premier League, moving from “middling” to quite big very quickly. They still have some way to go to catch United though. — Mailonline.