Tottenham to appoint new “Head of Emerging Talent” to recruitment staff

Tottenham Hotspur have made a new appointment to their recruitment staff as they continue to shuffle their backroom this summer. In an exclusive on Football.London, Alasdair Gold writes that the club is set to appoint Chris Perkins in a new role as Head of Emerging Talent.

Perkins’ primary role at Spurs will be to head up the identification and recruitment of young players, specifically youngsters age 17-21 that Tottenham can bring into the academy. He joins Tottenham from Everton where he had a similar role, and made a name for himself in recruiting young players while at Derby County.

Spurs have always been a club that has tried to prioritize (with varying degrees of success) developing players from the academy and creating a pathway to the first team. It’s a smart move, as it’s cheaper to buy a promising kid when younger and turn them into a first team regular than it is to buy a first team regular outright. And even if they don’t turn into a first team starter, it’s likely that the players can be flipped for a small profit down the road — Chelsea in particular are extremely adept at doing this with their “loan army.”

I don’t know anything about Perkins, but I do love that Fabio Paratici, Steve Hitchen, Dean Rastrick, and the rest of the backroom staff are looking at continuing to find emerging young talents and getting them into Tottenham before other clubs get to them first. That’s not a guarantee that we’re going to be producing world class academy products left and right, but it certainly makes it more worthwhile to keep an eye on the U23s going forward. Here’s hoping Perkins can make a big impact.