From The Athletic
DONYELL MALEN, ROMA AND A CURIOUS YEAR AT ASTON VILLA
By Jacob Tanswell
Precisely a year after Donyell Malen joined Aston Villa in a deal worth €23million plus a further €3m in add-ons, he had finalised terms with another club.
An agreement was struck on Wednesday morning, sending Malen to Roma on an initial loan deal.
The Serie A club said the Netherlands international has joined with an option to buy, with Villa stating they had received an undisclosed fee. However, The Athletic reported this week that it will be an obligation worth €25m (£21.7m; $29m) at the end of the season, plus a €2m loan fee. Villa would be breaking roughly even in their return for Malen, which sounded and felt about right.
A fitting end, perhaps, for a player who had a curious year-long existence at Aston Villa. The club had tracked and pursued Malen for three transfer windows, only to be unsure of where he fitted in, irrespective of the impact he could make with limited game time.
The 26-year-old was permitted to travel to Rome and arrived on Wednesday evening. He had been happy in the West Midlands, yet the nagging issue of finite opportunity and tactical incompatibility was never going to cease.
Malen wanted more minutes as the line-leading centre-forward, but manager Unai Emery regarded him as a second striker. As a focal point, the Netherlands international would often be effective in bursts, invariably from the bench, but would be less so when starting Premier League matches.
Ideally, Malen would have been paired with Ollie Watkins more regularly — as his double against Burnley would testify — though that would call for Emery to overhaul his fundamental structure. He started just 11 matches across all competitions this season, which, while low, was a spike compared to the back end of last campaign when he joined.
Back then, Villa’s first signing of the January 2025 window was the easiest forgotten, accruing just 392 minutes and starting twice in the league.
But sources close to the dressing room, expressed surprise at the timing of his departure from a Villa, believing a move was likelier to materialise in the summer. Villa’s decision-makers were not wholly sure in sanctioning Malen’s departure and had been weighing up the pros and cons earlier in the week. On Tuesday, his representatives met with senior figures to try to thrash out a solution, one way or the other.
Malen was well-liked, having garnered respect from team-mates and coaching staff for his reaction to being left out of Villa’s Champions League squad last year.
Upon his arrival, Malen spoke publicly of how excited he was to help Villa in the knockout stages of Europe’s blue-chip competition. “It was a very important thing when deciding to move,” he told reporters.
Neither he nor his representatives countenanced that he would be omitted from the updated 25-man squad a few weeks later, with Villa authorised to only register three new additions. They turned out to be three loanees — forwards Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio, plus Axel Disasi, who provided defensive cover.
Emery and his coaching staff were swift to offer support to Malen and work through his disappointment. Although his response was viewed as admirable, being left out symbolised the tough start. He was impressive and impactful when he played… if he played.
Unperturbed, Malen was intent on finding a way to fit this season. He enlisted the help of a personal chef, trained longer and took inspiration from Youri Tielemans, who had endured early teething issues at Villa before transforming into one of the league’s best midfielders.
Outside of football, circumstances were also improving. He and his wife, Delisha, bought a house in the region with their three children, finding schools, nannies and settling well.
Part of Villa’s appeal was that Malen had noted how forwards of his ilk, such as Watkins, Carlos Bacca, and Edinson Cavani, thrived under Emery’s coaching. However, Emery did not view Malen as a traditional centre-forward.
Villa spent more than a year wooing Malen, drawn by his adaptability. Few European-calibre forwards operate across multiple positions as he does, with Emery an eternal advocate for attacking versatility. The former Borussia Dortmund attacker had listened to the presentations from Villa’s recruitment team, with background checks and his salary broadly completed for many months.
But what made Malen different to other malleable attackers was how he could fill so many roles, but none of them existed in Villa’s system. He was not a No 9 — there were reservations about his link play when coming deep — or a playmaking No 10.
Consequently, initial opportunities would have to come from the right, where Emery tends to station his widest, most orthodox winger.
Other clubs had also been aware of this particular concern, noting his creditable goalscoring record, but also his shortcomings, including his off-the-ball diligence and ability to fashion chances himself. Malen was described by one senior figure at another Premier League club as a “player who falls between the cracks profile-wise”.
Emery, too, held concerns. Malen did his best work in the inside-right channel and struggled to hold width. Emery believed the best way to extract Malen’s qualities was to fashion patterns of play in a 4-4-2 shape that would end with the forward finding space to shoot between the opposition’s left-sided central defender and left-back.
His best goals at Villa came from this position and were virtually identical, evidenced in his strikes against Burnley and Southampton.
Quite simply, though, Emery needs his forwards to contribute in different scenarios. Emery decided that Villa’s best and most reliable way of working, which has been so well-oiled for more than three years, is through a configuration of a 4-2-3-1 system, with lopsided full-backs that alter the shape in possession, providing control and enabling most attacks to be funnelled centrally through several attacking midfielders.
He will always remain in favour of an extra attacking midfielder opposed to an additional striker, so someone on Malen’s salary, with interest from other clubs, was regarded as expendable. This has paved the way for Villa to hopefully strengthen, either in the form of a direct replacement or a signing in another area — even if Malen’s departure has come through gritted teeth.
Malen’s year at Villa will be tinged with disappointment. He averaged a goal every 134 minutes in the league, even though the overall makeup of his game time was spliced and chunked together through cameos off the bench. He demonstrated his striking prowess but Malen could never convince Emery that he was deserving of a more central role.
