Donyell Malen has become a goalscoring machine. The Dutch striker is unstoppable, and against Udinese he scored his 11th goal of the season in just 12 games. In short, Roma , with the former Aston Villa player on the pitch, started 1-0. Away from the capital and Gasperini , however, the story is very different for the 1999-born player. His last international goal for the Netherlands came on November 17, 2025: after that, seven games went without a goal...
For Gasp, transforming a centre-forward into a machine that constantly outperforms opposing goalkeepers is nothing new: it's already happened with the likes of Zapata (from 11 to 28 goals), Muriel (from 13 to 19), Hojlund (from 6 to 10), Scamacca (from 8 to 19), and Retegui (from 9 to 28) . Not to mention Borriello (from 3 goals to 19), Gilardino (from 13 to 16), Pavoletti (from 7 to 15), and Jeda (from 9 to 15).
Malen, a goal machine generated by Gasp: a goal every 0,78 games
Since arriving in Rome, Donyell Malen has scored 22 goals in 28 games: an average of 0,78 per game . This is a performance he's never had in his career; in his previous stint at Aston Villa, he only managed 10 goals in 46 matches (an average of 0,22). As reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport, his best performance came when he was playing for PSV: 55 goals in 116 appearances (an average of 0,47).
Gasperini has managed to find the right position for the Dutch centre-forward who is being valorised by the team's play. A total understanding since day one. Now Malen is performing like an absolute top: in 2026 no striker has scored more than him (22), not even the Ballon d'Or winner Kane (21), who however has a slightly higher average (0,95).
