It is the archetypal clash of paupers and princes.  In one corner stand Crystal Palace, a club so cash-strapped they have not paid a transfer fee for more than 12 months and have been subjected to a Football League transfer embargo for failing to pay money owed to a clutch of former players.

In the other, Manchester City, a club who could feasibly lay claim to the title of the world's richest sporting institution, bankrolled by billions of Arab petro-dollars and fresh from a £120million summer spending spree that has seen an array of stars arrive at Eastlands to dazzle the locals.

It is hard to imagine a starker contrast and yet the teams begin tonight's Carling Cup second-round tie at Selhurst Park as equals. "It just seems like a completely different reality to the one we exist in," said Shaun Derry, the Eagles skipper. "We have the telly on at the training ground most days and we've been watching the news reports flash up with City splashing £25m on this player and £20m on that player.

"We just look at each other and wonder whether we're really playing the same game as these guys.  "It's exciting for the Premier League, because we've been talking about a Big Four for ages and now City are making a serious challenge, but the rest of us just have to look on and wonder at it all."

Derry's disbelief is understandable but the cold hard bottom line is that tonight's game could yet have secured Palace's short-term future.

The south Londoners will bank £60,000 for the television rights to City's visit, and a crowd of around 17,000 is expected at Selhurst Park -more than five times the number that attended the first-round victory over Torquay. City boss Mark Hughes is expected to field a strong side as the club goes in search of it's first silverware since winning the League Cup in 1976. It is also new-look City's first trip to London this season.

The promise of a cash injection from this tie accelerated paying off the former players who were still owed salary and bonuses from last season and enabled the club's supporters, not to mention their accountants, to breathe a little more easily.

"The problems we have had in terms of the finances have been well documented now and it's not nice to read the headlines we've been getting," said Derry.

"Hopefully, this will help and it's just such a relief for the players, the manager and the chairman that this tie will generate a bit of cash.

"You try and insulate yourself from all the off-field stuff but it's not easy and a tie like this will get everyone excited and focusing on the football again."

There is nothing like the visit of an A-lister, albeit a newly-established one, to concentrate the mind and while City's ascent from also-rans to genuine contenders is a very modern footballing phenomenon, Palace must hope tonight's tie reverts to time-honoured type and delivers an upset.

The Eagles are certainly preparing an old-fashioned welcome for their moneyed guests. "The away dressing rooms aren't the best and they might find the heating turned up a couple of notches when they get in there," Derry added. "But they will have so many seasoned pros in their squad I'm sure it won't bother them too much.

"We have to use the fact that this is a classic David versus Goliath tie as inspiration and try and pull off a shock."