The questions to club statistician Paul Dutton keep coming in and so to end the week, he crunches some more numbers for his regular answer session...

Frank Lampard's statistics over what is quickly becoming one of the longest Chelsea careers have made frequent appearances in Ask Statman. They are doing so again as I open this time with a question from Nicky Fernandez.

Nicky has noted that Lamps is very high in the both the Premier League top appearance table and Chelsea's top scorer tables and wonders about his chances of topping either if he carries on his recent averages.

Currently the two highest appearance makers in Premier League history are David James on 573 games and Ryan Giggs with 551. Frank is currently sixth on 469 matches so 104 off the top. Giggs will increase his total further, James is currently outside the top flight, but with the Chelsea man having three seasons left on his contract, including this one, and his appearances in the high 30s for the last two seasons, he must have a good chance of leading that one.

When it comes to Chelsea top scorers he is third (Bobby Tambling 202 goals, Kerry Dixon 193, Frank Lampard 158) so needs 45 goals to overtake Tambling. It is clear that 20 goals a season over the next three would achieve that comfortably.

He would be a little closer had the five penalties he missed gone in, a subject discussed in the last Ask Statman. Pete from Hobart has emailed in querying that my claim that the FA Cup Final one in May was the only penalty that missed the target completely.

He suggests one versus Charlton at home in 2006 was sent over the crossbar but I can confirm the dubiously-awarded spot-kick that day was saved by Scott Carson.

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Aritro Ganguli emailed in from India to ask which players have spent the maximum number of seasons at Chelsea including reserve or academy seasons.

There is a clear top two whom I shall list.

Peter Bonetti (below) racked up 22 seasons of service. His first game was on 22 February 1958 when aged 16 in a South East Counties League game against QPR away. He was straight away recording clean sheets (he still holds the first-team record) as Chelsea won 5-0. His last game was on 14 May 1979 versus Arsenal at the Bridge, a 1-1 draw. He was aged 37.

Ron Harris also began in the South East Counties League, playing in a 4-2 win over Millwall on 22 August 1960, aged 16. His last game was on 3 May 1980 against Oldham at home in Division Two which we won 3-0. He was 35 and had played for Chelsea for just under 20 years. So more first-team appearances for Chopper compared with The Cat but Bonetti wins out on years.

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India is also involved in the next question with Yasser Aftab noticing in an old match programme that Chelsea have fielded a player born in India. Yasser is correct when he follows up by saying there have been no Indian nationals who have represented Chelsea but he asks about others born in that land. I have fours names.

Hugh Dolby was born in the home of the Taj Mahal, the city of Agra, and played two games between 1909 and 1912.

Len Dolding was born in Kolar Gold Fields and played 27 games in the three years after the Second World War.

Charles Donaghy's birthplace was Meerut. He played a handful of games at the start of Chelsea's existence - three matches between 1905 and 1907.

George Hunter was born in Peshawar, now in Pakistan but in India when the player made 32 Chelsea appearances in the year leading up to the First World War.

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From India to Ireland now because Colm Moloney is wondering how many Irish players (both north and south of the border) have played for Chelsea. He also asks for the highest goal and appearance totals amongst those players.

We have had 17 players born in Ireland, plus seven more born in England but who represented either Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland.

The top three highest appearances makers are:

John Dempsey 207 games
Kevin Wilson (pictured below) 191
Andy Townsend 138

Top scorers are:

Kevin Wilson 55
Joe Bambrick 38
Damien Duff and Andy Townsend 19

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Moving away from the pitch and into finances, P Midhun asks about the richest clubs in the world and where Chelsea sit in the list.

Clearly there are different ways to define wealth and many will say Manchester City are currently at the top. These are not my stats in this case but Deloitte's sport unit rank wealth by revenue (in euro) and their 2008/09 figures are:

1. Real Madrid  401.4 million
2. Barcelona  365.9 million
3. Man United  327 million
4. Bayern Munich  289.5 million
5.Arsenal  263 million
6.Chelsea  242.3 million
7.Liverpool  217 million
8.Juventus  202.3 million

Sodiq Aiyedun asks how much did the winner of the Champions League last season earn in prize money and how much did the top two in the Premier League collect?

In the Champions League, each club earned 2.87 million euro plus match bonuses of 550,000 euro per group match, 800,000 euro every win and 400,000 every draw in the group stage. If they progressed to the last 16 they trousered another 3 million euro, the quarter-final was 3.3 million, semi-final 4 million, runners up 5.2 million and the winners 9 million.

From the Premier League, Chelsea were handed £52.8 million, Man United £53 million and Arsenal £51.7 million. Those totals were made up of merit payments dependent on league position added to the TV share and amount per live game. Man United had two more live games, hence their slightly larger amount despite finishing second.

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From high finance to advanced technology, or at least what seemed like advanced technology at the time.

Rob Willis has recollections of a game back in the early 1980s versus Coventry which he writes sticks is his memory for a couple of reasons.

One was Coventry's notorious two-tone chocolate brown away kit and the other was the unveiling of Stamford Bridge's new state-of-the-art computerised scoreboard. Rob remembers it promptly blowing a fuse about 20 minutes into the game, never to be fixed, which I will challenge because as can be seen in the top picture, it did work in later games (his may be a tongue-in-check comment).

The match was actually just before the end of 1970s, 21 February 1979 to be precise, and we lost 3-1 with Tommy Langley scoring first and Coventry replying with three goals in six minutes. Those were the days.

The game was the opening of the new scoreboard but my records make no mention of a malfunction so I want to throw this one open to the floor. Does anyone who was there remember that happening? Please email in.

Rob also asks if it was our lowest crowd for a home league game. It wasn't. The crowd was 15,282.

Speaking of sparse attendances, Barry Price reports a blazing row with an Arsenal supporter. Barry maintained that Arsenal had one of the lowest recorded crowds, in the 1960s against Leeds at Highbury in a top-flight game.

He was right because just 4,554 were there for that 1966 match, but he wants comparative figures for Stamford Bridge.

The lowest Chelsea home crowd is recorded as 3,000 v Lincoln City in 1906. Our lowest in the top flight is 6,801 against Liverpool on Christmas Eve 1938, when there was heavy snow in London, as discussed in an old Ask Statman.

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There are two testimonial questions in my inbox and one of them brings Peter Bonetti back into discussion. Phil Humphreys remembers going to Bobby Tambling's testimonial match and seeing our legendary goalie score two penalties. He wants reassurance his memory is not playing tricks and points out that Bonetti was playing in goal at the time and was not an outfielder like Dave Beasant at Kerry Dixon's match which was discussed in the last Ask Statman.

I was at the game myself. It was just around the time I started going to Chelsea games. Charlton were the chosen opposition for the match at the Bridge on Monday 21 April 1969. The Chelsea side won 5-1 and there were two penalties scored by Bonetti plus goals from Eddie McCreadie, Ian Hutchinson and Peter Osgood.

Also in the last Ask Statman I gave details of a past friendly fixture against AC Milan in San Siro. Michael Davidson was one of the Chelsea following there that day and thought it might have been promoted in Italy as Franco Baresi's testimonial.

That isn't the case. Baresi's testimonial was in October 1997 against a Milan All-Stars team. Our match was in February 97.

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Mike Geen makes some points about recorded stats. He enquires if the appearance data for players early in our history include games in the London Challenge Cup before the 1930s, when it was recognised as a reserve team competition. Before that change Mike likens the tournament to the Full Members Cup or League Cup of later years which we do include.

The answer is the London Challenge Cup isn't included because even before 1930, although there might have been first team players involved, it wasn't classified as a first-team competitive tournament.

He also queries why, when it comes to international appearances while a Chelsea player, I include players owned by other clubs who were on loan with us at the time and also those making international appearances while we had sent them on loan to other clubs.

I take Mike's point that this is claiming caps differently for our players loaned out and other clubs' players coming to us, but there are no formal regulations on how these stats are recorded and I regard someone a Chelsea player while they are playing for us, and also if we own them but they are playing elsewhere.  

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Karo from Tashkent would like to know when after World War Two did normal games resume. His request extends to asking for some results.

The FA Cup restarted in 1945/46 and for the only time each round was over two legs.

Chelsea's results those first two seasons back were:

45/46
3rd round v Leicester - home 1-1, away 2-0 win.
4th round v West Ham - home 2-0, away lost 1-0.
5th round v Aston Villa - home lost 1-0, away lost 1-0.

46/47
3rd round v Arsenal - home 1-1, away 1-1, White Hart Lane 2-0 (pictured below).
4th round v [cup holders] Derby - home 2-2, away lost 1-0.

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It is always great to receive emails following up on previous answers, and especially so when it is from a player we have mentioned. In a previous Ask Statman, supporter Jim Kennett wrote about the youth team and asked about a player called Bryan Foscolo who did not feature in my records having not made a first team breakthrough.

Bryan himself has emailed me since, thanking Jim for remembering him and letting us know that after leaving Chelsea, he joined Swindon Town as a professional and made it to the FA Youth Cup Final, losing to Man United over two legs.

He then played regularly in Swindon reserves but damaged knees started to take a toll, and although he managed further seasons at Cambridge United and Cheltenham, knee operations eventually ended his career.

Thanks very much to Bryan for getting in touch and also supporter David Wright, who emailed in offering a way to make contact with Bryan.

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I want to clear up a few short questions before finishing.

Edward Walton asks who did Chelsea play on 18 September 1968 and what was the score. We beat Greenock Morton 5-0 in the Fairs Cup.

Peter Barry wants the year of his first away game, at Man United when Bill Garner scored the only goal to give Chelsea victory. It was September 17, 1977, the winner a header past Alex Stepney from Kenny Swain's cross after 90 seconds.

Terry Lynch from Ireland sets me the challenge of finding a 10-0 win in a friendly match with Peter Osgood playing the whole match but not scoring any of the goals.

He doesn't defeat me because in a tour match in West Indies against a Barbados combined 11, played at the end of 1971/72 season,Tony Potrac scored five, Chris Garland two, Paddy Mulligan two and Tommy Baldwin the remaining goal.

Khaled Hussari asks which Chelsea player holds the all-time record for scoring the most goals as a substitute, and wants confirmation of last season's FA Cup semi-final attendance as three different figures were doing the rounds.

Didier Drogba and Tore Andre Flo are tied on 12 substitute goals with Eidur Gudjohnsen on 11.

The crowd for the semi against Villa was given out incorrectly as 85,472 on the day but corrected on the Monday by the FA to 85,897.

We welcome Ramires to Chelsea with Aniekwe Gabriel asking are there any other players of Brazil descent to have played for Chelsea.

The list is:

Alex, Juliano Belletti, Mineiro, Deco and Emerson Thome, and if we want to take it down to reserve team level, there was defender Mauro Da Silva who was with us in 2002/03.

On similar lines, Fakih Karademir asks about any other Argentinean players apart from Hernan Crespo and Juan Sebastian Veron. The only other was the just-departed Franco Di Santo.

And to finish off this time, Franck, from France asks how many players have played for Chelsea.

Including Yossi Benayoun and Ramires, but excluding guest players such as ones used during war-time, the number is 666.

As is always the case, I haven't the space to answer all questions sent in so apologies if I haven't tackled yours this time. I will be back in a few weeks.

If you have any follow-up contributions, corrections or new statistics-related questions, please email statman@chelseafc.com