September 21: Premier League crowds remained packed for matchweek 5, with lowly strugglers Tottenham still the obvious: softer attendances at their £1 billion stadium are now being matched by an equally dismal start on the pitch.
Even with the lame start to the campaign, Spurs still drew 60,920 for their home defeat to Aston Villa, although that left almost 2,000 empty seats as they slipped to the bottom of the Premier League table after Fulham’s draw with Manchester United.
On the other hand, Newcastle, Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth operated above 99% capacity, with 380,769 fans attending the ten games in total and only 6,411 unused seats, the best since the start of the season.
That put the weekend’s average attendance at 98.34% of available capacity, rebounding from 97.78% in Game Week 4 and keeping the league’s early season numbers comfortably above the 98% average.
Newcastle led the way with a 99.86% attendance, with just 72 empty seats at St James’ Park as 52,647 watched their much-needed win over Hull.
Brentford were far behind with 99.67%, drawing 17,193 for their thrashing of neighbors Chelsea, while Brighton filled 99.28% of the Amex in a weekend that brought the hammer down on Arsenal’s perfect start.
Bournemouth also broke the 99% mark, with 11,216 inside the Vitality Stadium, although they were unable to break down Liverpool’s rebuilt defence, losing 1-0.
Manchester City are now the only team with a perfect league record after Arsenal dropped points, welcoming 60,312 to the Etihad for a 5-3 thriller against Sunderland, which saw striker Brian Brobbey become the first man to score a hat-trick for the losing side in the Premier League since 2007.
The weaker end of the table was occupied by Leeds and Spurs.
Leeds recorded the lowest fill rate of the weekend at 96.86%, with 36,462 at Elland Road. There may be some impact from ongoing work around sections of the stadium, although with the club’s official capacity still at 37,645, this is the figure used for the tracker, so take it with a grain of salt.
The spurs, however, have nowhere to hide. It gets a little harder to ignore when football goes bad too. Villa’s defeat left Spurs in 20th after five games, with pressure quickly starting to mount around a team expected to challenge much higher up the table, especially with £334m invested in a shiny new kit.
For the league as a whole, however, the outlook is very healthy. After five matches, the Premier League is yet to record a matchweek below 97.7% capacity, with four clubs effectively sold out this weekend.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at (email protected)
