Even £50m Fernando Torres cannot sell-out Stamford Bridge

The football-blogging community has been boisterous with banter this week, as knockout Champions League football resumed to settle four last-16 ties.

Fans flooded through turnstiles and turned-up their television sets alike, to suck up the latest instalment of Europe’s elite club competition.

As Arsenal tamely succumbed to the pass-masters of Barcelona on Tuesday, Tottenham triumphed over an AC Meelan in transition, to cement their spot in the competition’s last eight.

Cue over-the-top, premature protestations from Spurs fans they were now not only Arsenal’s equals, but suddenly somehow their superiors.

Forget the fact that they can barely see Arsenal battling for the top prize at the summit of the Premier League as they scramble to secure a top-four berth. Or indeed the fact none of them were even born the last time Tottenham finished above their bitter rivals. As their jammy 3-2 victory at Emirates Stadium earlier this campaign surely proves, Arsenal’s days as north London’s leading light are behind them for good.

But where does this leave Chelsea in the capital’s pecking order? Having lavished obscene sums on Fernando Torres and David Luiz to augment an ageing and let’s face it, spent squad, in the January sales, Roman Abrahmovich’s plaything entertain FC Copenhagen in their own Champions League second leg on Wednesday night.

But how do you measure a club’s size? The markers are many and perhaps difficult to gauge given the inevitable inaccuracy of information swamping the web. From player salaries to squad cost and shirt sales, statistics speak little.

Unless of course you're talking trophies won, or attendance. For the latter, Arsenal top the London pile by a mile thanks to their state-of-the-art Emirates Stadium and Tottenham are sure enough of their own supporter numbers to be pressing ahead with ground-moving plans themselves.

And Chelsea?

They can’t sell out a Champions League knock-out stage home game with under a week until kick-off. Not with John Terry, Fat Frank or even a real football luminary like El Nino destined to be on show.

Yes Chelsea are 2-0 up but they face a side who held Barcelona this season and the ease of their first leg endeavours should be tempered by the knowledge the Danes were in the middle of a winter break and understandably rusty.

And yet, the Blues cannot muster enough interest to fill their stadium.

One thing’s for sure, despite their rouble-funded relative success of the noughties, Chelsea are still some way off calling themselves a ‘big’ club.