Tottenham's emerging talent manager Chris Perkins is set to make the switch to local rivals Arsenal, football.london understands.
football.london revealed on Saturday that Perkins had left Spurs last month after the club's structure continued to change around him and now with a number of clubs chasing his services, including his former side Everton, he seems set to take up a similar talent spotting role at Arsenal.
Perkins made a name for himself during five years as head of academy recruitment at Derby, with a high percentage of first team players coming through the club's youth set-up, before he made the move to Everton in 2020. Just a year later and after beginning an appraisal of Tottenham's scouting network for first team and academy players, the club's managing director of football Fabio Paratici and then technical performance director Steve Hitchen brought in Perkins to identify the best young talent from the 17 to 21 age bracket to bring into the club's academy.
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Perkins assembled a team of emerging talent scouts and among their academy moves they brought in talented teenage striker Will Lankshear from Sheffield United in a deal that could eventually be worth £2m. The 17-year-old has four goals in four appearances for the club's U18s and has already stepped up to the U21s.
football.london understands that another forward is expected to join Spurs ' academy this week as the club look to bolster that depleted area of their U18s and U21s.
It is yet to be decided whether Perkins' vacant role at Tottenham will be absorbed into the current structure, with chief scout Leonardo Gabbanini having brought in his own staff that are involved in youth recruitment, or whether the academy scouting department will again be restructured.
With Paratici's future unclear after his 30 month ban by the Italian football federation, and the club bracing themselves for UEFA and FIFA potentially extending the suspension, there could be more changes to come at Tottenham in the months ahead.
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