North London Derby

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The world of football was rocked today with the news that 2 unknown managers Marc Foster and Lee Townsend have been put in charge of north London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham. Never before have 2 ex Sunday league footballers have been given such high profile jobs as their first full time roles in management. I say full time as Townsend did have a short 11 game stint with Wolves which resulted in 5 points and him quitting with the club stuck in the relegation zone. Protests have started already outside of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and AFTV has reported record numbers of people wanting to vent their anger on the station as fans try to come to terms with the news.

With the start of the season fast approaching both managers have been busy. Looking at pre season friendlies it appears Foster is trying to get Tottenham back to playing front foot football with a high press but with the majority of his squad still on holiday it is hard to tell how this will develop when competitive football starts.

It doesn't come much tougher than a trip to Stanford Bridge as your first game but both sets of fans will be looking forward to the first North London derby on the 18th September where the winner will start to get the fans behind them and the loser just pile even more pressure on themselves!

Both managers have been active in the transfer market for different reasons.

Townsend has been quick to get rid of some deadwood freeing up some funds for some incomings and was even spotted driving Callum Chambers to Birmingham to make sure Wolves parted with £15M for the unwanted CB. With a bid accepted for Malinovski it looks like Townsend is flooding the squad with midfielders in a bid to win games with a 2-7-1 system! 

Foster has been busier with more incoming business going for Piccoli early as a back up for Harry Kane and Sule from Bayern as a starting CB. After a meeting with Daniel Levy The Hierarchy decided to go over Foster's head and spend the rest of the budget and more on German youngster Musiala as apparently Son, Alli, Moura, Gil, Kane and Piccoli didn't seem like enough options in forward areas. 

Arsenal are expecting Townsend to get European football by the end of the season while Levy has demanded Top 4 from Foster so we are expecting him to be out of a job by November!

 

More on this story as it develops (probably tomorrow)