Arsenal Appoint Russian Data Scientist for Team Performance

DBasia.news – Arsenal revolution is still going strong under Unai Emery leadership. Not only recruiting the players in the summer transfer market, The Gunners is also changing the technical part outside the field.

Arsenal has recruited five players: Stephan Lichtsteiner, Bernd Leno, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Lucas Torreira, and Matteo Guendouzi. In the technical area, Arsenal got a new figure from Russia.

Reported from Telegraph (20/7), the person is Mikhail Zhilkin, the data scientist who was the mastermind behind popular game Candy Crush. Zhilkin was graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University) with Science in Applied Physics and Mathematics master degree.

In Arsenal, ZHilkin will work under the Performance Director, Darren Burgen. Like his title as a data scientist, Zhilkin’s job is to analyze the physical and injury data of the players. He won’t asked to think about players recruitment or technical area.

His presence is expected to minimize the injury of Arsenal player. As we know, this is the main problem of Arsenal recently. Zhilkin will modernize Arsenal as a club adapting to modern football.

Arsenal Chief Executive, Ivan Gazidis, wants Arsenal as the place for the experts in developing the club in a modern way, also giving maximum performance to the squad, exceeding the budget for recruiting the players.

Arsenal revolution outside the field can be seen from the departure of Colin Lewin (medical service), Andy Rolls, Ben Ashworth (physiotherapy), and Dr. Philippe Boixel. They were working under Arsene Wenger previously.

Emery brought Juan Carlos Carcedo, Pablo Villanueva, to work as the coach for the main team along with Steve Bould. Julen Masach, Javi Garcia, and Victor Manas are also following the Spain manager step.

Emery’s methodology is unique. He always depends on video recording as the tools to analyze the strength and weakness of the opponent, and also analyzing the performance of each player in the squad.