(CNN) -- The bad news just keeps coming for English Premier League champions Manchester United.
Already out of the FA and League Cups, another English Premier defeat to Stoke at the weekend left the club lagging 15 points behind leaders Arsenal and now an online survey of Chinese fans reveals the London club has eclipsed United as the most popular football club in China.
Arsenal edged David Moyes' side as the most popular club with Italian side AC Milan third, and ahead of Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Germany was chosen as the most popular national side in China ahead of Italy and Spain while the English Premier League was the overwhelming favorite national division among Chinese fans, receiving 50% of the votes ahead of Spain's La Liga and Italy's Serie A.
The survey was conducted by Coventry University's Center for the International Business of Sport (CIBS) in England between September and November last year, and drew a total of 15,586 responses.
CIBS researcher Jiajia Song offered a possible explanation for why Chinese football fans may prefer Arsenal to Manchester United, which has regularly toured in the Far East.
"Fans are more likely to support a club team when players from their favorite national squad regularly make the starting line-up," said researcher Jiajia Song, who worked on the survey.
"This means players like Mesut Ozil and Lukas Podalski, both German international players and players for Arsenal, are likely to fulfill an important commercial and marketing role for club, country and league."
Arsenal first played in China in 1995 but did not tour again until 2011, reportedly because manager Arsene Wenger preferred to focus on preseason training in Europe rather than embarking on potentially lucrative international tours.
Many of Arsenal's Premier League rivals, including United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, have traveled to China and other Asian nations in the hope of boosting their preseason coffers.
But Professor Simon Chadwick, director of the CIBS, argues the potential revenue from a club's global fanbase is not being maximized.
"There's no doubt that clubs generate revenue from China, South Korea and Japan," Chadwick explained on Twitter. "Whether they make a profit is a different matter.