What's happening in the online Premiership?

Life online is starting to echo events in the real world for a number of Premiership football clubs as silicon.com reveals the standings in the latest website league table.

The performance of all the Premiership clubs' websites was monitored over the past month by Keynote, and the results have thrown up some impressive similarities to life in the real world Premiership - as well as some remarkable differences.

In terms of the contrasts, there are none starker than Leeds. While the pride of Yorkshire have been doing well in the online world, in fifth place with an average time to access of 2.09 seconds, on the pitch things couldn't be going worse.

Another club faring better in the real world but worse in the virtual is Liverpool. Embarrassed by arch rivals Manchester United at the weekend, there is no hiding place online. Alex Ferguson's team also claim dominance online - albeit by the slenderest of 0.02 second gaps. However, victory in that mini battle belies a poor performance overall - both clubs are down in the 'dog-fight' in the bottom half of the table.

Other Premiership high-flyers Arsenal are also failing to set the online world alight - with an average 3.64 seconds over the month leaving them in twelfth, below their own arch enemy Tottenham, who claim ninth with 2.97 seconds.

However, top honours for the month go to another London club. Chelsea claim number one spot in the table with an outstanding 0.15 seconds, which is the fastest single monthly average registered in the two years silicon.com has been compiling this table. In any other month, second place Charlton's time of 0.83 would almost certainly have been enough to claim 'King of the castle' status.

Finally, special mention should be made of West Ham, who have managed to perfectly recreate their performance on the pitch online. The Happy Hammers are languishing in last place with an average over the month of 4.79 seconds. Interestingly (or maybe not), Birmingham are the only other club whose online and offline position are the same, sitting in eleventh in both tables at the time of writing.

The full table for November looks like this:

1. Chelsea 0.15 (seconds)
2. Charlton 0.83
3. Sunderland 1.02
4. Newcastle 1.47
5. Leeds 2.09
6. Everton 2.17
7. Aston Villa 2.32
8. West Brom 2.52
9. Tottenham 2.97
10. Middlesbrough 2.99
11. Birmingham City 3.11
12. Arsenal 3.64
13. Southampton 3.72
14. Manchester Utd 4.04
15. Liverpool 4.06
16. Blackburn 4.34
17. Manchester City 4.38
18. Bolton 4.51
19. Fulham 4.55
20. West Ham 4.79