Friday 30 September 2016 18:52, UK
Tottenham and Manchester City might be rivals at the top of the Premier League but a closer look at their likely Super Sunday line-ups highlights a striking gulf. Football Whispers explains...
When Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City face off at White Hart Lane on Sunday - live on Sky Sports - it will be a meeting between two teams with many similarities but two clubs whose first-team recruitment policies differ greatly.
Spurs and City finished third and fourth respectively in the table last season and both have their sights set on a title challenge this time around.
But when analysing their respective transfer dealings, a vast disparity between the two clubs becomes apparent.
When the sides line up in north London, the cost of City's predicted line-up - £288.1m - will dwarf by almost two-and-a-half times that of Tottenham's - £116.9m.
City's financial dominance would have been in further evidence if both teams were able to call upon, arguably, their most influential players but Harry Kane and Kevin De Bruyne will both miss the match due to injury.
Had De Bruyne been fit, the £54m fee City paid Wolfsburg for him a year ago would have seen the away side's total rise further, regardless of which team-mate he replaces.
But Kane's inclusion as a homegrown product of their academy would have seen Spurs' total cost fall, as the England international would have likely replaced Janssen in attack.
The biggest positional disparity in cumulative transfer fees is found in the sides' defences: City's predicted backline for Sunday's fixture has been assembled for more than three times the cost of Spurs' - £95m compared to £26.1m. This statistic is made all the more remarkable when you consider that one of the expected starters in Pep Guardiola's defence, Bacary Sagna, arrived on a free transfer.
Interestingly, the closest Mauricio Pochettino's men come to transfer fee parity is when isolating the predicted substitutes' benches.
Spurs' back-ups were signed for a total cost of £79.1m, - just £0.25m less than City's - with Sissoko (£30m) and Eric Lamela (£25.8m) accounting for a significant slice of that sum.
When the two starting XIs take to the field at White Hart Lane on Sunday afternoon, the visitors' squad will almost certainly have been assembled at a far greater cost than their hosts, though should Spurs need a game-changer from the bench, Pochettino will have an expensive pool of talent to call upon.
Despite the vast difference in the buying power of Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, a close encounter is anticipated in front of the Sky Sports cameras.
Don't rule out goals though - there have been 22 scored in the last five Premier League meetings between these sides at White Hart Lane.
