It’s been a busy year for former City Football Group (CFG) employees and Tottenham Hotspur.
On the playing side, former Manchester City defender Pedro Porro was signed by Spurs in January.
Then off the pitch, it was announced in April that Scott Munn, then the chief executive of CFG China, would be leaving that role to join Spurs as chief football officer. He officially started work at the club in September.
The chief football officer role is newly created and followed a review of Tottenham’s football operation. That review was led by Gilly King, an external consultant and former head of human resources at Manchester City (she also held a similar role at Spurs previously).
Then in June, Ange Postecoglou, once of Yokohama F Marinos, a club CFG has a minority stake in, was appointed head coach.
The trend continued later that month when Simon Davies was promoted to the important role of academy manager to replace the departing Dean Rastrick. Davies spent eight years at City, the last of which was as head of academy coaching.
So when Spurs arrive at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, there’ll be a few players and staff within their ranks very familiar with their opponents and the way they operate.
How then do we explain this apparent Cityfication of Spurs? And what are its implications? Perhaps most intriguingly, how similar can Spurs ever be to City when in many ways they are so different?
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