Arsenal hire Russian ex-Candy Crush data expert | OneFootball

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Blaise Bourgeois·20 July 2018

Arsenal hire Russian ex-Candy Crush data expert

Article image:Arsenal hire Russian ex-Candy Crush data expert

Arsenal have announced the arrival of Russian data expert Mikhail Zhilkin, who previously oversaw the launch of the Candy Crush video game.

The Gunners have been going through a revolution since Unai Emery has taken over, and this move will further accelerate their new-wave movement off the pitch.


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A graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Zhilkin has a Master of Science in Applied Physics and Mathematics and has been appointed as Arsenal’s new data scientist. He will work under Arsenal’s director of high-performance, Darren Burgess.

Zhilkin’s focus will be analysing injury and physical data, not recruitment or technical performance.

This is the latest move in chief executive Ivan Gazidis’ call for all-round expertise and ideas from across different industries. Gazidis is looking to build an organisation that can outperform their natural spending power.

Zhilkin has described himself as a “data scientist interested in rational thinking, automation, data visualisation, machine learning, association football”.

Sounds like a pretty sweet idea.