London, Feb 9 (ANI): Manchester United ace Wayne Rooney is the most popular Premier League player on Twitter among his fellow professionals with the striker having more peers following him than any other footballer in the top flight, as well as boasting the most worldwide followers.

Rooney tops the Twitter popularity stakes ahead of teammate Rio Ferdinand, Manchester City duo Joleon Lescott and Vincent Kompany and Chelsea defender Ashley Cole, the Sun reports.

A study by the Sun took the 50 players in England who boast the most worldwide followers and then looked into the connections between them, who follows who.

It was found that Rooney is followed by 23 of his fellow big-name aces ahead of Ferdinand who is followed by 21. Surprisingly, out-of-favour City defender Lescott is next with 16 ahead of his club captain Kompany and England left-back Cole who both have 14, the paper said.

The research also shows Arsenal midfielder Arshavin is as detested by other footballers as he is by his own fans, as the Russian is not followed by any top footballer, making him the Premier League's most unpopular tweeter, it further reported.

Twitter big mouth Joey Barton will be gutted to find out that of his two million worldwide followers, only eight are Premier League superstars. Then again, the QPR midfielder, on-loan at Marseille, only follows two colleagues back himself, his pals Michael Owen and Phil Neville.

Real Madrid ace Cristiano Ronaldo is the world's most popular footballer on Twitter with 15.9 million followers. Teammate Kaka has 14.3 million, way ahead of Brazilian Neymar with six million and Rooney, the paper reported. (ANI)