Forward’s coaches share what makes the former Arsenal youth so special as he returns to the Emirates with new club
The memories will surely come flooding back for Donyell Malen. Perhaps in the minutes before arriving at the Emirates Stadium. Maybe en route if Aston Villa’s team bus bypasses St Albans, where he lived in an apartment, a few miles up the road from Arsenal’s training base in Hertfordshire.
On Saturday the forward, Villa’s new signing from Borussia Dortmund, could make his Premier League debut at the club where he spent two years as a youngster. He left Ajax for London at 16 but returned aged 18 to the Netherlands with their rivals PSV Eindhoven, and there Malen began to realise his potential.
He excelled during six months with Jong PSV, outscoring Cody Gakpo to finish the 2017-18 season as the under-23s’ top goalscorer and making his Eredivisie first-team debut in the February of a title-winning campaign. “He was at Arsenal doing his thing, a good player but not using all his skills,” says Twan Scheepers, now the Jong PSV manager, who worked closely with Malen as an individual attacking coach and the assistant manager.
“We gave him directions to make the best of his attributes and he started to use his speed better and more. For example, he made more runs behind the defensive line and attacked the 18-yard box quicker, where he was extremely dangerous. In his first two or three months he liked to play towards the ball and just to have the ball, but his efficiency got better and better.”
Villa have landed a long-term target. Malen, a Dortmund substitute in the Champions League final last season, ticks lots of boxes for Villa’s manager, Unai Emery, also formerly of Arsenal, because he can play across the front line: on either wing, as a No 9 or behind the striker.
The Netherlands manager, Ronald Koeman, has highlighted how Malen, who has 41 caps, offered his side natural balance as a right-footer on the right, rather than wanting to cut inside off the left.
At Dortmund Malen dovetailed with the left-back Ian Maatsen, a compatriot who joined Villa last summer, but he will probably line up on the right, where Leon Bailey, who has struggled to replicate his best form, has operated for much of this season, allowing Morgan Rogers to thrive centrally.
There is an argument Malen, who turns 26 on Sunday, is only getting started. He has impressive pedigree and plenty of experience since joining Ajax aged nine. “Donyell was always one of the top talents in the academy,” says Brian Tevreden, who coached Malen in Ajax’s under-14s and under- 15s, where teammates included Justin Kluivert, Matthijs de Ligt and Sergiño Dest. “In his first year with me he struggled a little bit, he was still growing so he had a lot of injuries with his knees, which are usual when you are in that growth period.
“I was a little bit harsh on him in the first season. I didn’t have to teach him about football but more about the importance of work ethic. Goals, speed, technique, he had all that already, but it was more about understanding how to be a professional. It was a bit of tough love.
“About five years ago I was shopping in the centre of Amsterdam and he was with his girlfriend. The great thing he said was: ‘Now I’m older, I understand what you were trying to do with me. I’m not angry, I know what you were trying to do.’ Now he is working his socks off.”
Liftoff at Arsenal never arrived, though he featured for Arsène Wenger’s side on their pre-season tour of Australia in 2017 against Sydney FC, a game in which Emiliano Martínez – now in his fifth year at Villa – also played. Andries Jonker, Arsenal’s academy manager at the time, implied two years later that Malen struggled because he was overweight.
Arsenal’s head of youth development in 2017, Steve Morrow, doubted whether Malen ever really settled. He departed with seven goals in 24 appearances for the under-23s and 27 in 67 across the academy age groups.
He was born in Wieringen, between Alkmaar and Amsterdam. His mother, Mariska, worked night shifts for a taxi company in the village of Westerland, 35 miles north. She and a two-year-old Malen moved there to be closer to her parents after splitting from his Surinamese father, Robert, but regularly visited Malen in England. Tevreden says: “In that period I was the sporting director of Reading so I met him once or twice and I met their head of academy [Jonker], who was my youth coach, a couple of times.
