Arsenal ‘analytics guru’ Jaeson Rosenfeld of StatDNA is leaving the club to join Arsene Wenger at FIFA, according to a report.

The Athletic report that Rosenfeld is planning to team up with Wenger at FIFA. The former Arsenal manager believes the organisation needs substantial development in analytics, and he thinks Rosenfeld is the man to help out.

StatDNA is clearly a very highly-valued part of Arsenal within the club, which makes it worrying to lose someone overseeing it. It hasn’t always been so popular with the fans though. Signings like Gabriel, Mohamed Elneny and Shkodran Mustafi are often associated with the company in a less-than-positive manner.

As always, it’s hard to know exactly which transfers the company was responsible for though. Did they recommend Leno, Martinelli and Aubameyang? Were they fighting against some of Arsenal’s worse signings but failing to convince the club hierarchy?

According to The Athletic’s article, Rosenfeld pushed Arsenal not to extend Unai Emery’s contract over the summer, which was obviously a good move. However, his influence in the transfer market was waning as Raul Sanllehi took over.

It’s early days, but I have to admit I haven’t seen a substantial drop in quality of signings in the new Sanllehi system.

The last two windows are proving good ones so far. The only real disappointment is Cedric Soares, who hasn’t played a match. It’s very possible he’ll play a part before the season is over though.

At the same time, recruitment should always be a mix of scouting, contacts and analytics. There’s no reason Arsenal should stop using StatDNA to inform their signings (and no suggestion they’re going to).