The 25-year-old has been turning heads in Europe.
Whatever Mikel Arteta had Arsenal doing in Dubai, it worked.
The Gunners have looked like a team reborn since returning from their midwinter break, and with four impressive wins on the bounce, they have well and truly reentered the Premier League title race.The north Londoners\’ frontline are firing once more, although as deadly as they are starting to look, there is a former Gooner who left the club as a youngster who\’s looked even better this season.In fact, this player has outscored Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard this campaign while equaling Gabriel Jesus\’ tally across all competitions, having been sold for a cut-price fee.
Donyell Malen’s time at Arsenal
The man in question is none other than Borussia Dortmund\’s red-hot Dutchman, Donyell Malen.
Now, there might be quite a few fans out there who had no idea that the Wieringen-born dynamo was ever even an Arsenal player to begin with, and considering he never made a competitive first-team appearance, that\’d be understandable.
Malen joined the Gunners\’ youth setup from Ajax\’s academy in July 2015 and made 57 appearances across the U23, U18, and UEFA Youth League sides, scoring 18 goals and providing nine assists along the way.
He made a couple of appearances in friendlies when Arsenal toured Australia in the summer of 2017, but with no clear way into the first team, he was sold to Dutch side PSV, with The Athletic later revealing that he was sold for just £200k.What likely frustrates the Arsenal board more than anything, though, is that since selling the Dutchman for just £200k, his valuation has skyrocketed 25400%, as according to the CIES Football Observatory, the former Gooner is now worth around €60m, which, is roughly £51m, or £50.8m more than the north Londoners sold him for almost seven years ago.