Changes are afoot in the Premiership hierarchy, and that is nowhere moreapparent than in the big city derbies, reports Kevin McCarra

When Sol Campbell returned to White Hart Lane with Arsenal a year ago the Tottenham Hotspur supporters expended so much loathing that they must have been emotionally bankrupt for the rest of the season. If fans can exhaust themselves in 90 minutes, there must be a heavy price for people who are paid to maintain the rivalry every day.

The labours of these managers and directors, however, may finally be shaking the Premiership hierarchy. This afternoon Tottenham face Arsenal at Highbury, at a time when city rivalries are making the Premiership a more diverse and engrossing competition.

Glenn Hoddle's side, despite recent lapses, could prove gifted enough to finish among the leading six clubs. Everton, in fourth pace, no longer need a telephoto lens to keep Liverpool in their sights. Last weekend Manchester City defeated Manchester United for the first time in 13 years.

The elite are less insulated by affluence. Removal from the Champions League by Basle will put a check on Anfield spending; meanwhile, Arsenal's progress in that tournament and others has pushed up costs - with the wage bill bounding from £40.7 million to £61.5 million, they declared losses of £22.3 million after winning the Double last season.

At gleefully profitable Old Trafford even United are experimenting with a slightly more conservative tone. The wish to splurge and the means to do so are slackening. At Highbury, Arsene Wenger's bill for summer signings came to only £7 million. Elsewhere, clubs once of reckless ambition, such as Chelsea and Leeds United, are atoning with parsimony.

David Pleat, Tottenham's football director, detects a realignment. "Some of them have budgeted for the Champions League and when they fail to qualify for it there is a bit of a black hole," he said. "Others have budgeted for the top six and may not get there. What you have to look for now is the clubs who have worked hard and have a group of six or seven players emerging who are capable of holding their own in the first team."

The description, naturally, fits Tottenham, whose youth policy has been augmented by such deals as the inspired £700,000 signing of Simon Davies from Peterborough. An eye for a bargain is imperative, as well as admirable, in a period of economic restraint.

"What you will see in the transfer window in January is the first sign of a declining market," said Pleat. "There will be loan deals and swap deals. The money that was spent in the past has turned out to be irrecoverable."

In the longer term, though, the club should not have to depend on scuffling. Their present turnover of £65 million is extraordinarily large for a club lacking revenue from European football. If they could somehow wangle a Champions League spot, their income might approach Arsenal's £91 million.

THESE, however, are the economics of a boomtown metropolis. On Merseyside, in a beloved Goodison that is a poor cash-generator of a stadium, Everton, despite the David Moyes revival, still bump along on £38 million a year. With wounding symmetry, those two digits are reversed at Anfield, where the three cups of 2001 helped Liverpool rake in £83 million.

Everton, like Manchester City, have raised funds through the securitisation process that attracts investors by guaranteeing them future revenue from, say, gate money. The policy is a one-off and, to the outsider, a disquieting step. Though Kevin Keegan was able to bring Nicolas Anelka to Maine Road, the refinancing has had no such effect at Goodison.

Everton crave radical ways of transforming their circumstances, and they are fascinated by the Kings Dock proposal which is both tantalising and troubling. For a £30 million outlay they would have a state-of-the-art stadium and a key stake in the proposed £300 million redevelopment of the site.

But coming up with £30 million is problematical, and the burden of borrowing might mean there would be no money for signings until the debt is cleared.

Everton have been extensively unfortunate. They built a great side in the mid-1980s, just as English clubs were about to be banned from European competition. They then chose the worst time in the history of football to be a bad team, missing out on the vast proceeds with which successful clubs could enrich themselves in the bonanza 1990s. Bill Kenwright, the passionate and eloquent man who led the takeover of Everton two years ago, has occasionally had his optimism put to the test.

It wearies him when his club are called "paupers", all the more so because the theatrical producer was so close to completing a spellbinding media deal with NTL. "It was October 25th, 2000," he said. "The chairman and the board were all going to NTL's offices at four o'clock to sign the contract and then we were going to my first night of Fallen Angels, with Felicity Kendal and Frances de la Tour.

"After that we were planning to break open the champagne. Well, the angel that fell was Everton, I'm afraid. I got the phone call at 20 past two that there was a problem. I never got to the first night. Do you say to yourself, 'Oh my God, we were an hour and 40 minutes from erasing all our financial problems', or do you say, 'We might have blown it by trying to be something we aren't'? Maybe the way we are doing it now is the correct way, with feet on the ground."

He could be right. Everton may not have the means of Tottenham, but they are dipping into the great managerial resource of Moyes, whom Kenwright wanted to appoint as soon as he opened discussions with the Scot late last season.

"Within minutes I knew what his potential was," Kenwright states. "Do you remember that scene at the end of the film Jerry Maguire, when Tom Cruise goes into the speech where he starts apologising to Renee Zellweger and asking if there is any chance of being forgiven? She interrupts him and says, 'Shuddup, you got me at 'Hello'."

Moyes' authority and shrewdness struck outsiders almost as speedily as they did Kenwright, and the club have been aided, too, by the providential emergence of Wayne Rooney, teenage talisman. It is ridiculous to think that Everton's return to greatness is preordained, but life at Goodison has shed its greyness.

So sentimentalists can daydream of Everton and Tottenham joining Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal to reconstitute the Big Five of yesteryear. Turning back the hands of time must seem possible, above all, to the stage-struck Kenwright, who lives his life in the midst of theatre's special effects.

Guardian Service