City’s gold reserves

MANCHESTER now boasts THREE £100million football teams — City, United... and City's reserves!

SunSport has run the rule over the Premier League's top-six

squads to see which is best prepared for the title run-in.

And, unsurprisingly, nobody can match mega-bucks Manchester City when it comes to strength in depth.

We studied the teams for City, United, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool and selected their "Best" starting XIs from players who are fit or will be returning to fitness soon.

For example, Arsenal's Jack Wilshere, who is sidelined with an ankle injury, was eligible but United's Darren Fletcher and Nemanja Vidic were not, as they are out for the season.

Then we went through the squad lists and picked their "Second Best" line-ups. To see which team has the strongest squad, we calculated the cost of every player in the second XI and their number of league appearances.

And it showed that Roberto Mancini's City stiffs must be the envy of every club on the planet — barring Real Madrid and Barcelona — as his back-ups cost a staggering £126.45m to assemble.

MAN CITY

FIRST-CHOICE TEAM: Hart, Richards, Kompany, Lescott, Clichy, Y Toure, Barry, Silva, Aguero, Nasri, Balotelli.

BEST STARTING XI COST: £185.6m

SECOND XI: Pantilimon, Zabaleta, K Toure, Savic, Kolarov, De Jong, Hargreaves, Johnson, Razak, Milner, Dzeko.

RESERVES' VALUE: £126.45m

CITY'S second string have made it through to the last four of the Carling Cup.

And they would probably challenge for a Champions League place given the chance.

It's hardly surprising, though, as Roberto Mancini's band of understudies cost more than Tottenham and Arsenal's best starting line-ups put together.

MAN UTD

FIRST-CHOICE TEAM: De Gea, Smalling, Jones, Ferdinand, Evra, Nani, Carrick, Cleverley, Young, Rooney, Hernandez.

BEST STARTING XI COST: £162.1m

SECOND XI: Lindegaard, Fabio, Evans, Fryers, Rafael, Valencia, Giggs, Anderson, Park, Berbatov, Welbeck.

RESERVES' VALUE: £77.25m

UNITED'S best XI may be on a par with City's, but their second string is lagging behind.

Nemanja Vidic's long-term injury has left the Red Devils a bit light in the centre-back area.

Alex Ferguson has also struggled to replace Gary Neville at right back.

The United boss may have to buy in January.

TOTTENHAM

FIRST-CHOICE TEAM: Friedel, Walker, King, Gallas, Assou-Ekotto, Lennon, Parker, Modric, Bale, Van der Vaart, Adebayor.

BEST STARTING XI COST: £44.1m

SECOND XI: Cudicini, Corluka, Kaboul, Bassong, Rose, Pienaar, Sandro, Livermore, Kranjcar, Pavlyuchenko, Defoe.

RESERVES' VALUE: £64.8m

THE Spurs front side is worth a lot more than what Harry Redknapp paid for them.

And the sight of stars such as Jermain Defoe, Niko Kranjcar, Sebastien Bassong and Steven Pienaar in the second string shows how far they have come.

Spurs now have more depth than Arsenal — and it is starting to show in the table.

CHELSEA

FIRST-CHOICE TEAM: Cech, Ivanovic, Luiz, Terry, Cole; Ramires, Romeu, Meireles, Sturridge, Drogba, Mata.

BEST STARTING XI COST: £120m

SECOND XI: Turnbull, Ferreira, Bosingwa, Alex, Bertrand, McEachran, Mikel, Lampard, Kalou, Torres, Malouda.

RESERVES' VALUE: £128.625m

GIVEN the strength and depth of Chelsea's squad you have to question why they are not doing better.

On paper, the Blues should be making more of a challenge. But on grass, they are still light in key areas.

People say their main men are too old — but there do not seem to be any younger ones coming through.

ARSENAL

FIRST-CHOICE TEAM: Szczesny, Sagna, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Gibbs, Ramsey, Wilshere, Song, Arteta, Gervinho, Van Persie.

BEST STARTING XI COST: £63.5m

SECOND XI: Fabianski, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Djourou, Santos, Frimpong, Coquelin, Rosicky, Arshavin, Walcott, Chamakh.

RESERVES' VALUE: £51.8m

ARSENE WENGER has done a fine job to lead Arsenal back into contention following their appalling start.

But you fear what would happen if top scorer Robin van Persie got injured or lost form.

There is not a lot of back-up in attack, especially with Marouane Chamakh and Gervinho likely to be on African Nations Cup duty.

LIVERPOOL

FIRST-CHOICE TEAM: Reina, Johnson, Agger, Skrtel, Enrique, Kuyt, Adam, Gerrard, Downing, Suarez, Carroll.

BEST STARTING XI COST: £115m

SECOND XI: Doni, Kelly, Carragher, Coates, Flanagan, Maxi, Henderson, Spearing, Robinson, Shelvey, Bellamy.

RESERVES' VALUE: £24.7m

KENNY DALGLISH may have spent a lot improving his team, but the Liverpool boss does not have much strength in depth.

And that will be severely tested if Luis Suarez is made to serve his eight-match ban.

Craig Bellamy has always played well when called upon but Andy Carroll needs to start delivering.