Ange Postecoglou has opened up on the challenges of dealing with an expensively assembled squad as his Tottenham side prepares to take on Chelsea. The game, which comes between two sides that have seen the biggest changes over the past 12 months, certainly has an interesting backdrop.

In recent years it has been a fixture largely dominated by the Blues as their newer, fresher managers took on the old head coaches at Stamford Bridge and dismantled them with relative ease. Frank Lampard against Jose Mourinho, Thomas Tuchel against Nuno Espirito Santos, Tuchel and Antonio Conte. That was until Graham Potter fell to defeat and the tide was already changing in west London.

At the time of the 2-0 defeat, the first away loss for the Blues at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in normal time since it opened in 2019, Spurs themselves were struggling and going through an existential identity crisis. Both teams sacked more than one manager throughout the season - sort of if we count Cristian Stellini - and were set for huge resets.

Postecoglou was a name briefly touted as a candidate for the Chelsea job whilst Julian Nagelsmann, Luis Enrique and Mauricio Pochettino were mutually admired by the two London sides. It was the appointment of the Argentine at Stamford Bridge that signalled the biggest backlash from Tottenham fans but what has followed has been near universal love.

The new Australian coach has charmed his way to the top of the popularity leaderboards and attacked on the field to the Premier League summit as well. After watching his best player be sold in the final week before the season started, his captain isolated out of the squad and a young team with plenty to prove take to the pitch it wasn't always destined to be like this.

Tottenham were behind on opening day but have rarely looked back since. Perhaps the song could be 'I'm loving attacking football instead.' Now they come up against a team so unashamedly chaotic that even Daniel Levy's decision-making looks calm in comparison.

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It's fair to say though that despite the transfer spending differences between the sides - Chelsea splashed out more on Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo than Spurs did all summer - Postecoglou doesn't wish the roles were reversed. Even with his star player sold and relatively unproven players signed compared to the lavish deals being done by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, Postecoglou thinks simpler can be better.

"I’ve always said I’ve never felt it is about just spending money," he said ahead of the meeting on Monday. "That’s been proved time and time again. Yeah, look if you get it all right then you’ve got a pretty strong case but there’s always a limit to every team. You can’t have 24 world class players. That will never work. It doesn’t work, it's been proven.

"Its about having a squad that’s balanced, guys that are committed to a cause, guys that maybe aren’t going to play every game but every time they play they are going to make a huge impact for you because they buy into what you are trying to build.

"Just spending endless money to get the best players has been proven time and time again is not the answer. The answer is to get the right chemistry in your team, in your squad, to have 24 players committed to one cause. I don’t think you can do that If you just get the 24 best players in the world. That’s a headache I definitely don’t want."

For Pochettino the transition has been stark, going from Spurs and Levy where the budget was tight and often non-existent during the stadium move to Paris Saint-Germain and the only side that can rival wasteful inefficiency in the market from Chelsea and Manchester United. Now back at a club with money to spend and a point to prove and it hasn't started well.

Postecoglou, on the other hand, is making the most of the pieces in play already. Yves Bissouma has been one of the standouts so far but hardly got a kick under Conte. Cristian Romero looked like a lost dog at times in defence but has been assured next to Micky van de Ven and Guglielmo Vicario is one of the most unknown additions in the league but has been rock solid in goal.

Of the 11 players to have the most minutes this season in the league - all but one have more than 700 minutes of action in 10 matches - eight were already on the books at Spurs before Postecoglou took over, Destiny Udogie is one of those but returned from loan. The same criteria for the Chelsea squad and six were signed in the summer, two in January and one coming back from loan. Only three of the players in the squad top 11 for minutes played were at the club in 2022.

It is for this reason that Postecoglou decided against being too critical of Pochettino for the early season struggles. "I’m reticent to comment on those kinds of things because what I know is you don’t really know what challenges exist until you’re in it," he explained.

"Even here, people can assume what kind of challenges I had coming in but it is probably not a tenth of what we had to do or what I felt needed to change. Whether that’s Mauricio or any other manager I guess, you don’t really know what they are having to deal with to get to the end point. But at the same time, while others may look at it and say ‘that’s a real difficult one’, there will be managers saying ‘I wish I had a billion to spend and waste’ because what some people sometimes see as an advantage, others see as a disadvantage. That’s the challenge for all us managers.

"I really think we are all in our own unique space that nobody can really understand because none of us can really disclose all the information because that’s the way organisations work. What I have to deal with and what Mauricio has to deal with are probably very, very different. But in essence what we are trying to do is the same thing: build a team that we believe can bring success.

"You look at Mauricio’s track record and I’ve got no doubt he’ll get Chelsea on the right path, I’ve no doubt about that. How he goes about that, he knows better than anyone else."

Although there are understandable comparisons between the sides after managerial changes, squad overhauls - though Chelsea's much larger than Tottenham's and with a much greater dose of inexperience - there are also massive differences. It hasn't helped Blues fans deal with their continued poor form either with Tottenham responding and winning nearly every week.

What does appear clear is that there are two ways of going about things and even Spurs' proportionally large spending for their own history doesn't come close to the £1billion ($1.2bn) in three windows under the new Chelsea owners. It is a world apart for Pochettino and his time in north London, a world apart from Postecoglou and his current team and the two teams are a world apart in the table.