Arsenal must regret selling "sizzling" sensation now worth 10650% more
da 888casino： Arsenal’s hard-fought win over Leicester City on the weekend just about kept them in the Premier League title race for another week.
da apostaganha： However, while two late goals are always great for morale, Mikel Arteta’s side remain comfortably behind Liverpool in first place.
Moreover, with a thread-bare attack, it certainly feels like it would take a minor miracle for the North Londoners to finally get their hands on the trophy this season.
Worse yet, an attacker they sold back in 2017 has just returned to the Premier League and is now worth millions more than what they sold him for.
Arsenal's notable 2017 transfers
Before getting to the player in question, it’s worth looking back at a couple of signings made by Arsenal in 2017, starting with Sead Kolašinac, who joined on a free from FC Schalke in June that year.
He may have been moving to the Gunners for nothing, but there was a level of excitement over his arrival, as in the season prior, he scored three goals and provided nine assists for the Bundesliga side in just 36 games.
Unfortunately, despite producing nine goal involvements in his first season with the club, the Bosnian international never truly got to grips with English football, being labelled “naive” and “irresponsible” by Gary Neville in his very first game for the club, and after a few more mediocre seasons, he was sent back to Schalke on loan for the latter half of 20/21 and then released by mutual consent in summer 2022.
A more successful signing made in 2017 was that of Alexandre Lacazette, as while he probably didn’t score quite as many goals as fans would’ve liked for his then-club record fee of £46.5m, he was a useful member of the first team throughout his five-year stay in North London.
In all, the French centre-forward made 206 appearances for the Gunners, in which he won an FA Cup, scored 76 goals and provided 32 assists, which comes out to an average of a goal involvement every other game, which is just the sort of attacker the club could do with at the moment.
Likewise, the player the club sold for pennies on the dollar that same summer is also someone Arteta could do with today, especially as he’s now worth millions more.
The Arsenal star sold too soon
There were a few notable sales from the first team in the summer of 2017, such as Wojciech Szczęsny and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, but in this instance, the player was sold from the academy side.
Donyell Malen joined Arsenal as a child and had a reasonable record of 18 goals and nine assists in 57 games for the various youth sides, but was ultimately sold to PSV Eindhoven for around £200k in 2017.
Back in the Netherlands, the Wieringen-born star went from strength to strength and eventually ended up with a record of 55 goals and 24 assists in 116 first-team games for the club, which was enough to secure a £27m move to Borussia Dortmund in July 2021.
He was less prolific in front of goal in Germany but still effective.
Over the next three and a half seasons, the “sizzling” Dutchman, as dubbed by U23 scout Antonio Mango, would still rack up a respectable haul of 39 goals and 20 assists in 132 games, which was once again enough to earn him another move to a top five league, only this time it was the Premier League.
Malen’s Dortmund career
Season
21/22
22/23
23/24
24/25
Appearances
38
35
38
21
Minutes
2312′
2193′
2378′
957′
Goals
9
10
15
5
Assists
6
8
5
1
Goal Involvements per Match
0.39
0.51
0.52
0.28
Minutes per Goal Involvement
154.1′
121.8′
118.9′
159.5′
All Stats via Transfermarkt
Aston Villa were on the lookout for attacking reinforcements last month and set their sights on the former Hale Ender, who they eventually secured for around £21.5m, which is a massive £20.8m increase on the price the Gunners sold him for six and a half years ago.
In fact, the price paid by the Villans represents an incredible 10650% increase on the fee Arsenal received when they sold the attacker to PSV.
Ultimately, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but once he was out of the capital, it didn’t take long for Malen to show his stuff, and while he might not have been a regular starter for the Gunners, we reckon his presence in the team would make their current injury crisis a lot more manageable.
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