Balvers appointed as Arsenal's first Football Methodology Analyst
Balvers has been Methodology Analyst at both Malmo and Barcelona
Written by Training Ground Guru — July 31, 2021
ARSENAL have hired Dutchman Kevin Balvers from Malmo to become their first Football Methodology Analyst.
Balvers has held the same role with the Swedish side since January, and was a video analyst for Vitesse Arnhem in his homeland for six years prior to that. In 2019/20 he also worked as a Performance and Innovation Methodology Analyst for Barcelona on a freelance basis.
This role is rare, with Wolves' Francisco Belo being the only other incumbent TGG is aware of in English football. When that role was advertised with TGG, the purpose was described as "developing the best-practice framework and regular trend and research analysis across Wolves’ performance, the Premier League, as well as other global football trends, whilst supporting the first-team analysts in pre and post-match analysis tasks."
Balvers will help with first-team analysis as well as identifying best practice and trends (in terms of tactical, technical, performance and recruitment) at both Arsenal and other clubs, both at home and abroad.
Technical Director Edu has previously explained how he wants Arsenal's overall approach to become more data-driven.
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