Manchester City quietly returned to Premier League action against West Ham United on Wednesday.

While most of the attention focused on the return of Champions League football, Pep Guardiola's men continued their futile defence of a title that effectively has Liverpool's name written on it.

Nevertheless, they had the chance to reduce the gap to 22 points against a side lingering in the relegation zone and at the time of writing, they lead 1-0 through Rodri's opener.

But the game was gathering awareness on Twitter for a wholly different reason than the football on the pitch; rather it was the fans around it.

And it wasn't actually the fact that some City supporters were campaigning against UEFA's recent decision to ban the club from the Champions League for two seasons.

Man City fans mocked on Twitter

Actually, the jokey term 'Emptihad' was once again doing the rounds as images emerged on social media of large swathes of the Etihad Stadium featuring empty seats.

As a result, many football fans made their usual jokes about the City fans supposedly being 'plastic' and that their support is insubstantial for their size after the 2008 takeover.

Combine that with their European ban and fans were quick to joke that City should be worried if this is their level of Premier League support when they could be expelled to League Two.

But don't just take our word for it, check out some of the reaction on Twitter and make up your own mind:

GIVEMESPORT's Kobe Tong says

There's two ways to look at the situation.

On the one hand, it's a rearranged fixture in mid-week, so you've got to respect the fact some fans won't have prepared for this possibility and are saving their pennies for some of the bigger games.

Besides, nobody south of Nostradamus could have expected Storm Ciara to postpone the fixture out of nowhere.

But would you see this amount of empty seats at say Anfield? Probably not.

However, it's also worth tempering criticism when you look at cases like these because City actually get closer to their capacity than most Premier League clubs week in, week out.

Plus, the cost of attending football matches across four competitions is simply brutal, so I tip my hat to any supporters who turn up as often as they can through their own, hard-earned money.

As football becomes more and more saturated with money, it's the fans in the stands that keep the sport grounded and it's as much as the fault of the institution that empty seats rear their head.