Times have changed since the days of Gazza…
With Cristiano Ronaldo becoming the first person to reach 400 million followers on Instagram, and Lionel Messi the third most followed with 306 million, there is no doubt that footballers attract fans of attention on the internet.
Interested in this, Livefootballtickets.com sought to find out which Premier League stars and clubs saw the biggest increase in online popularity over the past year. To do this, the experts analysed monthly UK Google searches for the most valuable players and clubs from 2021 using the online search tool SEMrush.
Premier League football players with the biggest increase in searches
|
Rank
|
Premier League
player
|
Percentage growth
from January 2021
– December 2021
|
Premier League club
|
|
1
|
Raphaël Varane
|
536.8%
|
Manchester United
|
|
2
|
Romelu Lukaku
|
233.9%
|
Chelsea
|
|
=2
|
Bernardo Silva
|
233.9%
|
Manchester City
|
|
3
|
Jack Grealish
|
82.4%
|
Manchester City
|
|
4
|
Mohamed Salah
|
81.8%
|
Liverpool
|
|
5
|
João Cancelo
|
50.0%
|
Manchester City
|
|
6
|
Mason Mount
|
48.9%
|
Chelsea
|
|
7
|
Diogo Jota
|
22.3%
|
Liverpool
|
|
=7
|
Raheem Sterling
|
22.3%
|
Manchester City
|
|
8
|
Phil Foden
|
22.2%
|
Manchester City
|
|
9
|
Rodri
|
22.1%
|
Arsenal
|
Topping the table is Raphael Varane with a whopping 536.8% increase in online interest – the only Manchester United player to make the table. Varane has a market value of 35% less than the most valuable PL player, Harry Kane. Despite that, the French player reached an impressive 40,500 searches in August 2021, possibly because of fans being interested in his signing to The Red Devils from Real Madrid.
In second place is Romelu Lukaku with a percentage growth of an impressive 233.9% within the last year, which is 185% more than fellow Chelsea team-mate, Mason Mount, in sixth place with a 48.9% increase. Lukaku’s popularity peaked in August 2021 with 301,100 Google searches, which may have been a result of one of the biggest transfers of Summer 2021 when he left Inter Milan to join The Blues.
Joining Lukaku in second place is Portuguese star Bernardo Silva with a 233.9% increase in popularity, which is 183.9% more than fellow Manchester City team-mate João Cancelo, who takes fifth place with a respectable 50% increase in popularity online.
Jack Grealish places third with an 82.4% increase in online interest within the last year, which is 60.1% more than Manchester City and England team-mate Raheem Sterling in seventh place (22.3% increase). Despite having the third-highest increase in online interest, Grealish takes the crown for search volumes in 2021 with an average monthly total of 722,500 online searches.
Premier League clubs with the most online searches
|
Rank
|
Premier League club
|
Average Number
of searches
|
|
1
|
Arsenal
|
3,864,286
|
|
2
|
Liverpool
|
3,372,857
|
|
3
|
Manchester United
|
2,825,000
|
|
4
|
Chelsea
|
2,575,214
|
|
5
|
Aston Villa
|
1,333,571
|
|
6
|
Everton
|
1,199,714
|
|
7
|
Leicester City
|
641,286
|
|
8
|
Manchester City
|
318,679
|
|
9
|
Tottenham Hotspur
|
164,429
|
|
10
|
West Ham United
|
62,936
|
Arsenal clinches the top spot with 3,864,386 average monthly UK searches – 14% more than Liverpool in second place with an average of 3,372,857 searches per month. Despite that, Liverpool is the team with the biggest increase in searches throughout 2021 (82.5% increase over the year).
In third place is Manchester United with an average of 2,825,000 monthly UK searches – 88.7% more than rivals Manchester City in eighth place (318,679 average searches).
