THE MULTI-million pound gap in value between Fulham boss Jean Tigana's men in white and Stan Ternent's Clarets is clear to see.

As is the huge number of international caps Fulham's thoroughbreds have amassed in their long careers compared to Burnley's modest total.

But the fact is the FA Cup is no respecter of such divides, as was shown in the first clash at Loftus Road ten days ago.

The south west London club, bank-rolled by Harrods owner Mohammed Al-Fayed, spent a whopping £21.5m on just three players in 2001 - Dutch keeper Edwin Van Der Sar, French international striker Steve Marlet and his compatriot Steed Malbranque.

Other substantial signings have included towering centre-back Alain Goma, international-hope Jon Harley and midfield ace Sylvain Legwinski.

But the depressed nature of the transfer market has meant that this season the trend of costly signings has given way to taking gifted internationals on loan instead of forking out the inflated signing fee.

Pierre Wome, Junichi Inamoto and Martin Djetou, with 94 caps between them, have added proven international calibre to the line-up.

And in using loans Tigana has avoided the headache of million pound white elephants should their form dip.

Tonight at Turf Moor the Clarets will be hoping that money and reputation will again count for nothing, as it did against fellow London side Spurs in the Worthington Cup.